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GREAT THINGS 
OF THE BIBLE 

O. A. N E W L I N, I>. D. 

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Great Things of the Bible 



Great Things of the Bible 

Sunday Morning Messages 



O. A. NEWLIN, D. D. 

Author of 
"STRANGERS TO GOD" 



PASTOR'S LIBRARY ASSOCIATION 
Winona Lake, Indiana 






Copyrighted, 1919, by 
O. A. Neiwliii 



The Warsaw Union, Printers and Publisher* 
Warsaw, Indiana 

FEB 10 i9!9 

©CLA512310 



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THE THOUSANDS WHO LOVE THE WORD OF GOD 
AND WHO, AFTER HEARING THESE MESS- 
AGES, FIND NEW DELIGHT IN SEARCH- 
ING THE SCRIPTURE DILIGENTLY, 
THIS VOLUME IS AFFECTION- 
ATELY DEDICATED. 



CONTENTS 



I GREAT THINGS OF THE BIBLE 

II THE GOSPEL .OF CHRIST - 

III THE FOURFOLD GOSPEL 

IV THE DIAMOND NECKLACE - 
V TWO PICTURES IN ONE FRAME 

VI ESSENCE OF THE GOSPEL 

VII THE TRIUMPHAL CLIMAX 

VIII THE PATH OF THE JUST 

IX THE HALFWAY HOUSE - - 

X THE STANDARD OF A CHRISTIAN 

XI CHRISTIAN POISE - - - 

XII LOST OPPORTUNITIES - - 

XIII THE WINNING CHURCH u - 

XIV SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY 
XV RELIGION IN THE HOME 



9 

24 

a 

56 
71 
66 

102 
118 
133 
148 
163 
179 
194 
209 
224 



GREAT THINGS OF THE BIBLE 

"I have written to him the great things of my Law, 
hut they were counted as a strange thing." 

— Hosea, viii: 12. 

The Bible is a rich mine containing five veins. 
Just below the surface is the vein of historical facts ; 
even some infidels have gone to this depth and admit 
its literary dignity and accurate record of events. 
A little further beneath the surface is the deposit 
of ethical truth ; moral men have gone to this depth 
and have appropriated some of its high ideals. The 
richest vein of this mine is somewhat deeper and 
contains the deposit of spiritual truth; all true 
followers of the Lord have gone down to this stratum 
and have become possessors of "The Pearl of Great 
Price ' '. Just below this is the vein of typical truth ; 
not a few have reached this layer and tell us of its 
grandeur. The deepest vein contains the deposit of 
dispensational truth; comparatively few have pene- 
trated the rock overlaying this deposit and opened to 
us its treasure. All who take the elevator of Faith 
down the shaft of Research and survey the strata of 
this mine find abundant evidence that these "great 
things" which some have "counted as a strange 
thing" constitute the Divine, Infallible and Trans- 
forming Book. 



10 GREAT THINGS OF THE BIBLE 

I. The Divine Book. 
Behold the Bible! The Book of which God claims 
the authorship. Manifold are the evidences to sub- 
stantiate that claim. He used as writers kings and 
fishermen, philosophers and herdsmen, poets and 
tentmakers, statesmen and tax gatherers ; men learned 
in the wisdom of Egypt, educated in the schools of 
Babylon and trained at the feet of the rabbis in 
Jerusalem. The authorship of this Book is wonder- 
ful beyond that of all other books. It is not the 
product of one age but of the ages. The writers 
were widely separated by time and distance, with 
no thought of what particular place their work was 
to occupy. The plan was of God. He was two thou- 
sand years preparing for its appearance and fif- 
teen hundred years more in having it written. Other 
books become out of date, but this one lives on 
through the ages, keeping abreast of the keenest 
intellects. It is marvelous that sixty-six books, which 
tell consistently the variations of a single story, were 
collected in one, and survived intact the wreck of 
ancient literature. Collusion on the part of the 
writers was impossible. There was no human design 
in its preservation, for kingdoms and empires were 
destroyed and with them many carefully gathered 
libraries, yet this Book lived on, making its way 
against the tide of fiercest opposition. You might 
as well throw the alphabet over a sheet of paper on 
the sidewalk and expect to pick up the Declaration 
of Independence as to expect the Bible to take form 



GREAT THINGS OF THE BIBLE 11 

and survive without the design of God being back 
of it all. 

The Bible may be likened to a magnificent temple 
with sixty-six majestic chambers, more glorious than 
Solomon's temple with its hewn stone, its pillars of 
cedar, doors of olive and ceilings overlaid with fine 
gold. This temple was fifteen centuries in building, 
and the monogram of its Divine Architect is indelibly 
engraved on each of the eleven hundred eighty-nine 
chapters which comprise its imposing beams, pillars 
and panels. The approach to this stately temple is 
by the tranquil garden of Eden with its gorgeous 
flowers and lucid streams. Over the antique entrance 
is written " Chambers of Law and Justice''. The 
first of these chambers is an elaborate vestibule to 
the remaining four. It resembles a long gallery hung 
with portraits and pictorial scenes of surpassing in- 
terest, such as Paradise and the Flood, the Flaming 
Cities of the Plain, the Offering of Isaac, Rebecca 
at the Well, and the Governor of Egypt weeping on 
the neck of his brethren. From here we pass to the 
" Chambers of Historic Record", twelve extensive 
apartments, reaching from Joshua to Esther. These 
comprise the library of the edifice in which the sins 
and sacrifices of a thousand years are chronicled. 
Next is the "Gymnasium" of the building, or the 
saints' exercising ground, where Job makes a home 
run with the odds decidedly against him. Then we 
enter the "Conservatory" of the Psalms, where the 
superb orchestra with cymbal, trumpet, psaltery and 



12 GREAT THINGS OF THE BIBLE 

harp charms us with the variations of the Oratorio 
of Life. Adjoining this is the "Banquet Hall", 
where, seated beneath banners of love, we may par- 
take of Wisdom's Feast and enjoy the after-dinner 
speeches recorded in Proverbs, Ecclesiastes and 
Songs of Solomon. From here we pass to the ' ' Cham- 
bers of Prophecy"; seventeen stately halls in grand 
succession from Isaiah to Malachi, in which are many 
Messianic tablets directing in unison to the more 
modern portion of the Temple, where we may see 
the Princely Son of the Palace. 

Crossing the shadowy court with expectant hearts, 
we hear the angelic annunciation and enter the 
"Royal Chambers ", where we meet the promised 
Messiah. On the walls of these chambers we see not 
golden reliefs of palm trees but four full length 
portraits drawn by the Holy Spirit's inimitable hand, 
of One "Chief est? among ten thousand" and "alto- 
gether lovely". We pass at once into the "Cham- 
ber of Celestial Mechanics", where we hear the 
reverberating sounds of machinery in this work 
room of the building, the Book of Acts. Then we 
enter the stately halls of the "Apostolic Epistles". 
The golden doors of fourteen of these bear the in- 
scription, ' ' The Honorable Apostle to the Gentiles ' ' ; 
those of the other seven bear the worthy names of 
James, Peter, John and Jude. At last we reach the 
supernal "Observatory", where brilliant lights and 
mysterious shadows curiously interchange. In the 
distance we see high on the summit of the everlasting 



GREAT THINGS OF THE BIBLE 13 

hills, the New Jerusalem, bathed in light, with its 
foundations of precious stones, its walls of jasper 
and gates of pearl having angel guardians. A crys- 
tal river courses its way through this Celestial City, 
on the banks of which stands the Tree of Life with 
its leaves for the healing of the nations. Majestic 
Temple! An Eden for an entrance and a Paradise 
for an exit ! 

The sublime vision given us in the Bible is God's 
credential of authorship. Yet there are some who 
count the "great things" of His Law as a "strange 
thing", and would dispose of God by writing His 
name with a small "g". Their act is a confession 
that they find God and the Bible inseparable; that 
the only way to reject the Bible, which reproves 
their sin, is to disprove the existence of God. Their 
effort is as futile as that of the hag who broke the 
mirror which reflected her ghastly appearance, think- 
ing that the act made her a goddess of beauty. God's 
omnipotence is not determined by the size of His 
initial letter; He reigned before the alphabet was 
invented. He is the Alpha of all beginnings and the 
Omega of all endings. I like to meet a thinking 
man, but may we ever be spared from the belief 
that man originated thought. He himself was a 
thought before he became a thinker ; a thought with 
which the Infinite Thinker busied Himself since the 
morning stars sang together. And the thoughts 
which He has had for man's good, both here and 
hereafter, are chronicled in this old Book which 



14 GREAT THINGS OF THE BIBLE 

some regard as a "strange thing". Spirit of God, 
open our eyes that we may behold wondrous things 
out of Thy Law. 

II. The Infallible Book. 

Behold the Bible ! The Book of eternal accuracies. 
Where did the author of the eighth Psalm get his 
knowledge of the heavens? Not from the Chaldee 
astronomers. Who taught Abraham and David and 
Jeremiah that the stars were innumerable? The 
ancient world of science had no such knowledge. 
The old catalogue of Hipparchus gives the total 
number of stars to be one thousand and twenty-two. 
Later Proctor places the maximum number between 
five and six thousand. During the long hours of the 
clearest night only about three thousand can be 
seen by the unaided eye. The modern telescope con- 
firms Jeremiah's statement that they "cannot be 
numbered". 

Open your Bible at the first chapter and see its 
authenticity in the story of the Creation. Please 
observe that the word create is used three times, 
and only three; verse one, for the origin of matter; 
verse twenty-one, the origin of life, and verse twen- 
ty-seven, the origin of soul. In every other case the 
record is God "made", or God said "let there be". 
These are exactly the points where Nature has said 
to Science, "Thus far canst thou go and no farther". 
Given these indispensable beginnings Science can do 
much, but without them she is as helpless as an 



GREAT THINGS OF THE BIBLE 15 

Egyptian mummy. There is no conflict between the 
Bible and science ; controversy only arises when sci- 
ence contradicts herself. A skeptic once asked a 
minister, "How do you reconcile the teachings of 
the Bible with the latest conclusions of science?" 
"I haven't seen the morning papers," quietly replied 
the minister, "what are the latest conclusions of 
science?" Science is as variable as the moon, the 
Bible as stable as the sun. The Psalmist proclaimed, 
"Forever, Lord, Thy Word is settled in heaven." 
Luther had this sublime assertion of the eternal sta- 
bility of the Word of God written on the walls of 
his chamber and embroidered on the dress of his 
servants. 

Who instructed Moses in geology and comparative 
anatomy? When these modern sciences began to 
unwrap the earth's coverings and read the records 
of the rocks, those of unstable faith grew pale and 
trembled for the Word of God. They ascribe a vast 
age to our globe and agree that the order of creation 
was from the lower to the higher: no discord with 
Moses there. They give the proportion of brain to 
spinal cord in fish, two to one; reptiles, two and 
one-half to one ; birds, three to one ; mammals, four 
to one, and man, thirty-three to one. That is Moses ' 
order exactly, but isn't it surprising that he did not 
get reptiles before fish, if he were so given to mis- 
takes as the agnostic would have us think? Who 
taught Job that the atmosphere has weight? You 
get no hint in the philosophies of Aristotle and 



16 GREAT THINGS OF THE BIBLE 

Bacon of this astronomical fact. Galileo, the Flo- 
rentine astronomer, was first to discover the gravity 
of the air, yet Job thirty centuries before Galileo's 
day said, God made ' ' weight for the winds. ' ' David 's 
declaration, "I am fearfully and wonderfully made/' 
was rather advanced authentic physiology. The 
four detailed accounts of the crucifixion are in per- 
fect accord with anatomical facts only recently 
learned by science. Solomon's poetic description of 
death in Eeclesiastes xii:6, 7, is twenty-five hundred 
years ahead of the student of anatomy, and if he 
did not refer to the circulation of the blood in that 
figure, his language is exactly suited to Harvey's 
discovery. 

The " great things of the Law" have an eternal 
accuracy in science, philosophy, literature and art; 
but, not intending the Bible as a textbook in these 
branches, it should not be thought strange that God 
touches them with brevity. Ingersoll delivered an 
address at his brother's grave in which he does not 
mention public schools; is he therefore a champion 
of illiteracy ? In his lecture on Shakespeare he gives 
no algebraic equation; is he therefore opposed to 
mathematics ? I find no love story in his lecture on 
ghosts ; does he therefore not believe in marriage 
and happy homes? We expect a funeral oration to 
deal with death and the dead rather than elaborate 
on educational equipment. We expect a lecture on 
Shakespeare to illuminate the life and letters of 
the world's greatest rhetorician rather than magnify 



GREAT THINGS OF THE BIBLE 17 

mathematics. We expect a gush on ghosts to speak 
of spooks rather than depict domestic delights and 
discords. We expect the Bible to deal with duty 
and destiny rather than specialize in the sciences. 
It is not only a library for life but is also the ency- 
clopedia for eternity. The theme of the Bible is 
Christianity. It sounds the anthem of man's future 
in no minor key. It chants no dirge at the grave, 
but sings the triumphant march of the Spirit into 
a destiny that shall unfold forever; "a destiny in 
which the intellect, full orbed, shall sweep majes- 
tically through the infinite depths of truth; a des- 
tiny in which the will shall feel no fetters but the 
will of God ; a destiny in which the heart shall throb 
with the ecstasy of love; a destiny in which the 
conscience shall thrill eternally with the joys of 
holiness; a destiny in which the soul shall find pos- 
sibilities born of possibilities that know no bounds 
but the infinite." 

If we would see the beauty of this infallible Book 
we must let the light from above illuminate its 
sacred pages. When President Hitchcock of Am- 
herst College assembled a science class in a new 
recitation room with sky windows, the introduction 
to his lecture was, "Young men, all the light we 
have here comes from above." How can we hope 
to understand the Bible without that clarifying 
light ' ' from above ' \ for ' ' The natural man reeeiveth 
not the things of the Spirit of God; they are fool- 
ishness unto him ; neither can he know them, because 



18 GREAT THINGS OF THE BIBLE 

they are spiritually discerned. " The inability of the 
carnal mind, unaided of the Spirit, to grasp the 
great truths of the Bible does not destroy its authen- 
ticity. A society of infidels gathered around a table 
to drink a blasphemous toast to the Bible, which 
they had agreed to burn. The one to whose lot it 
fell to perform the task stood in the glow of the 
fire prepared for the occasion, and reaching for the 
Bible said to his associates, "Men, ought we not 
to put a better book on this table before we commit 
to the fire this one which has gripped the hearts 
of millions who claim it was written by an infinite 
hand?" Not a man present dared offer a negative 
reply, and the burning embers died out before they 
had the first sentence of their book written. 

The Bible has often been reviled, but it has never 
been refuted. It is as impregnable as Gibraltar ; and 
they who attack it, like the waves which sweep 
against that giant rock in the Mediterranean, do 
not break or even shake it, but only lash themselves 
asunder. Its foundations have been examined by the 
searching eyes of such assailants as Hume, Gibbon, 
Voltaire, and LaPlace, but it ever stands a glorious 
fulfillment of the words of its Author, "Upon this 
rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell 
shall not prevail against it." The empire of Caesar 
is gone and the legions of Rome are moulding in 
the dust ; the pride of the Pharaohs is fallen and the 
pyramids they raised for their tombs are sinking 
in the desert sands; Tyre is a rock for bleaching 



GREAT THINGS OF THE BIBLE 19 

fishermen's nets and Sidon has scarcely a wreck to 
mark its site. This proves how transient is the 
noblest work of man and how enduring is every 
word that God has spoken. Tradition has dug for 
the Bible many graves; intolerance has lighted for 
it many fagots; many a Judas has betrayed it with 
a kiss; many a Peter has denied it with an oath; 
and many a Demas has forsaken it ; but it ever 
remains the " power of God unto salvation to every 
one that believeth." 

III. The Transforming Book. 

Behold the Bible! The Book which brought a 
pagan world to the foot of the Cross and led the 
cannibal to feed on that Bread which came down 
from Heaven. The futility of transforming men 
by education alone was proven by Hans Edge, who 
spent fifteen years in Greenland attempting to make 
intelligent Christians of the inhabitants. With a 
broken heart he delivered his farewell message from 
the words of Isaiah, * ' I have labored in vain ; I have 
spent my strength for naught. ' ' Two years later he 
was succeeded by John Beck, who preached Christ 
crucified. One of the first converts was Kajarnack, 
who became a flame of evangelistic zeal amid the 
frozen regions of Greenland. Christ's death and 
resurrection in their revolutionary power affected 
instantly what fifteen years of educational effort 
failed to show any signs of accomplishing. Beck's 
ministry verified Paul's statement, ''Your labour is 



20 GREAT THINGS OF THE BIBLE 

not in vain in the Lord" Robert Moffat was told 
that if he went to preach to the savage chief, Afri- 
caner, the latter would make of his skull a drinking 
cup and use his skin for a drumhead. But with 
undaunted faith this humble missionary told the 
story of the Suffering Christ and Risen Lord with 
the result that the raging lion became as gentle as a 
lamb. The cruel chieftain was transformed into 
a consecrated Christian. 

"When James Calvert arrived at the Fiji Islands 
his first gruesome task was to gather up the bones 
and flesh which had been left over from a cannibal 
feast the day before. Within less than a century, 
which is scarcely a holiday in the cycle of evolution, 
the Gospel of Christ had transformed these cannibals 
into Christian men who delight to be seated at the 
Lord's table. Mr. Darwin, the evolutionist, visited 
Terra Del Fuego in 1833, and found a people whom 
he thought were incapable of being civilized, and 
wrote : ' ' The Fuegians are in a more miserable state 
of barbarism than I ever expected to have seen any 
human being. ' ' On his second visit, thirty-six years 
later, he found those whom he had regarded as below 
domestic animals transformed by the Gospel into 
Christians, and in his astonishment wrote: "I cer- 
tainly should have predicted that not all the mis- 
sionaries in the world could have done what has been 
done. It is wonderful and it shames me, as I have 
always prophesied a failure. It is a grand success. ' ' 
Being convinced that a revolutionary force rather 



GREAT THINGS OF THE BIBLE 21 

than an evolutionary process had been at work on 
Terra Del Fuego, he addressed a letter to the Lon- 
don Missionary Society which concluded: "I shall 
feel proud if your committee shall think fit to elect 
me as honorary member of your soceity." In that 
letter Darwin, the evolutionist, enclosed twenty-five 
pounds for Gospel missions. 

A Catholic priest rebuked a young woman and her 
brother for reading "that bad book," pointing to 
the Bible. She replied, "A little while ago my 
brother was an idler, a gambler and a drunkard. 
Since he began to study the Bible he works with 
industry, goes no more to the saloon and no longer 
plays cards, but brings his money home to poor old 
mother, making our home life quiet and delightful. 
How comes it, Sir, that a bad book produces such 
good fruits?" That verifies the words of the Psalm- 
ist, "Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his 
way? By taking heed thereto, according to Thy 
Word." Statistics prove the world over that life is 
secure and child birth legitimate in exact proportion 
as the Bible is read and heeded. 

Before asking me to give up faith in the Bible, 
prove to me that unbelief has greater merit than 
the Gospel. Show me a drunkard made sober, a 
libertine made pure, or a gambler charmed from his 
cards by unbelief. Has infidelity ever lifted the peo- 
ple of benighted islands from their ignorance and 
idolatry into lives of purity and hope ? All the infi- 
dels and agnostics of the world do not give as much 



22 GREAT THINGS OF THE BIBLE 

light as a single glowworm. When I see the light 
of the Gospel dispelling the darkness of Africa and 
causing the desert to rejoice and to blossom as the 
rose, I thank God that I am not an infidel. When I 
see the Church of Christ pointing men to the City 
of Eternal Refuge and counting no sacrifice too dear 
in her mission of mercy and labor of love, I again 
thank God that I am not an infidel. When I knelt 
beside my thirteen year old son who had been fatally 
crushed beneath the wheels of an auto and saw the 
last gleam of consciousness fade from his eyes, know- 
ing his unquestioned faith in Jesus as his personal 
Savior, like David, I rested in the hope, "I shall go 
to him, but he shall not return to me, ' ■ and thanked 
God then and shall never cease thanking Him that 
I am not an infidel. 

This blessed Book is my Book. I want no better 
weapon for life's conflict, no truer chart for life's 
pilgrimage and no brighter light in death's valley. 
I open its pages and see my sinfulness and my Savior, 
my helplessness and my help, my ruin and my resur- 
rection. It sets before me my cross and my crown, 
my condemnation and my Christ, my Calvary and 
my coronation. This Book is the omnipotent Word 
of God, the dynamic power of Christ and the two- 
edged Sword of the Spirit. It is older than our 
fathers, truer than tradition and more powerful than 
ceremonies. It is more authoritative than councils, 
more infallible than popes and more orthodox than 
creeds. Read it to be wise, believe it to be safe and 



GREAT THINGS OF THE BIBLE 23 

practice it to be holy. It contains light to direct you, 
food to sustain you and power to endue you. Here 
Paradise is restored, Heaven opened and Hell dis- 
closed. Read it slowly, fervently and prayerfully. 
It merits the highest respect, rewards the humblest 
believer and condemns all who trifle with its sacred 
contents. It is stained with the blood of martyrs 
who died for its doctrines, moistened with the tears 
of penitents who sought its proffered mercy and 
marked with the fingerprints of believers who veri- 
fied its promises. Put this Book in the hands of 
your son when he goes to war; put it in the hands 
of your daughter on her wedding day and put it 
under your pillow in time of sickness. Dear old 
Book! It rescues the tempted, comforts those who 
mourn and rejoices with those who rejoice. Holy 
Book ! Divine in its Authorship, Infallible in its dec- 
larations and Transforming in its influence. Blessed 
Book ! Good enough for earth, just enough for Judg- 
ment and immutable enough for Heaven. Will you 
not make it your Book today? 



II 

THE GOSPEL OF CHRIST 



"I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ: for it is 
the power of God unto salvation to every one that 
believeth." — Eomans 1: 16. 



On the left bank of the Tiber, fifteen miles from 
where that river flows into the sea, looking down from 
her seven hills, stood the ancient city of Rome, with a 
population of one million two hundred thousand souls. 
Among these were a few Christians to whom Paul 
addressed his Roman letter, the only one of his 
epistles, with the possible exception of the Colossian 
letter, written to a people with whom he had not pre- 
viously labored, but unto whom he purposed soon to 
come. In the words of the text he sounds forth with 
no uncertain tone his faith in the Gospel of Christ 
which is to be his message when he reaches Rome. 
Why should he be ashamed of the Bible ? It has God 
for its Author, humanity for its audience, redemption 
for its theme, and truth for its contents. It is the 
oldest, truest, most transforming, and only infallible 
document in the world. More authentic history, sub- 
limer truths, purer ethics, richer poetry, and sweeter 
strains of eloquence cannot elsewhere be found. For 
two thousand years man has been a student of the 
inspired Word, but some of its richest and sweetest 

24 



THE GOSPEL OF CHRIST 25 

truths he has yet to learn. Who would be ashamed 
of the Gospel of Christ? 

I. Who? 

What man is this who was not ashamed of the 
Gospel of Christ ? It was Paul, the scholar, the learned 
student of Gamaliel. There never was a time when 
scholarship had less occasion to blush for believing 
the Bible than today. The promise of Isaiah to the 
Church is constantly being fulfilled: "No weapon 
formed against thee shall prosper." The house in 
which Voltaire once lived in Geneva is now used as a 
depot for Bibles. On the spot, in Peoria, Illinois, 
where Ingersoll prepared some of his cutting witti- 
cisms against the church and Scriptures, now stands 
the Young Men's Christian Association building. So 
the Word of God goes triumphing over its foes. In a 
ministerial meeting one day, the subject of higher 
criticism came up, a minister having just read a paper 
on ' ' How We Should Defend the Bible. ' ' One brother 
arose and said: "Brethren, that old Book doesn't 
need defending; what it needs is preaching. These 
fellows who are running around trying to defend the 
Bible remind me of a pug dog trying to defend a lion 
in a cage. That lion doesn't need defense; just turn 
him loose and he will look after his own defense. 
What the Bible needs is proclamation, not defense. 
No man has ever been commissioned to defend the 
Bible, but thousands are commissioned to preach the 
Bible." 



l/ 



26 GREAT THINGS OF THE BIBLE 

Paul's declaration was to the effect that a scholar 
need not apologize for believing the Bible as if there 
were something in it that could not bear the closest 
scrutiny from every point of View, either in respect 
to its historical basis of fact, its divine rationality, its 
doctrinal system, or its power to give salvation to 
man. The more light thrown upon the Gospel, the less 
occasion the believer has for shame. Every tablet 
overturned by the pick of the archaeologists, and they 
are at it all the while, confirms the authenticity of the 
Bible. Why should scholarship have shame when 
every test to which the Bible has been subjected only 
substantiates its message? The Bible is as reliable as 
the sun; our interpretation of it as variable as a 
clock. We may adjust our clocks and turn them for- 
ward an hour or move them back at will, but the sun 
moves on without variableness. It would not be more 
foolish to attempt adjusting the sun to agree with the 
clock than it is foolish to alter the Bible to agree with 
one's preconceived ideas. Scholarship need never 
stagger at the Word of God. 

Paul was not only a scholar but he was a chosen 
messenger of God. Of all men who should not be 
ashamed of the Gospel, surely the minister stands first. 
Paul had just said, "As much as in me is, I am ready 
to preach the Gospel to you that are at Rome also." 
No man is ready to preach, nor should he receive 
ordination at the hands of his fellowmen to stand in 
this holy office, until he can say with Paul, "I am 
not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ." The first 



THE GOSPEL OF CHRIST 27 

qualification of the minister of the Gospel is not that 
he be learned or eloquent, but that he believe. What- 
ever may be the position of other men, he must accept 
the Bible as the Word of God. If this be impossible, 
then let him choose any other honorable profession 
but certainly not the ministry. Doubts may settle 
about the Gospel herald but he must face and master 
them in secret and come before his audience with an 
unclouded mind and a positive message. The pulpit 
must be a fountain of faith and never should the blush 
of shame hang over it to dim its holy light. 

The war against this old Book is most aggressively 
waged in institutions of learning, some of them oper- 
ating under a Christian name and supported by Chris- 
tian money. Institutions, if you please, where young 
men are being trained for the high office of the Gospel 
ministry. From these hot beds of doubt and liberal 
thinking have come not a few men who are today 
posing as ambassadors of God who cannot say with 
Paul, "I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ." 
One of these modern liberalists stated frankly when 
being examined for the ministry, that he did not be- 
lieve in the inspiration of the Bible as a whole. Is it 
any marvel that his ministry has been a failure ? Read 
the biographies of the great spiritual men who have 
moved the world Godward and you will find they held 
fast to the old Book, believed it, preached it, and 
lived up to its standard. 

"What am I to do?" asks the doubting messenger, 
"I cannot believe the Bible as our fathers did." I 



28 GREAT THINGS OF THE BIBLE 

will tell you in three words what to do. Quit the 
pulpit. You are an unhappy man if you deliver an 
uncertain message. God has withdrawn His approval 
and you can be little more than sounding brass or a 
clanging cymbal. One of these theological doubt dis- 
pensers preached in a country church and at the close 
of the sermon an old man said to him, "Young man, 
you dug up more snakes than you killed." It is high 
treason to God for one of His ambassadors to neglect 
the great themes of ruin and redemption, moral ac- 
countability and coming judgment, for science, philos- 
ophy, book reviews, political economy or the glories 
of our splendid materialistic civiliation. A minister 
recently preached on "The Psychology of the Solar 
Plexus. " Such flummery makes one feel as if that 
minister needs to be handed one in his solar plexus. 

Jesus never wavered concerning the Scriptures. 
Every mooted passage of the Old Testament He quoted 
or in some way used in His short ministry. He never 
entertained a doubt as to the authenticity of any part 
of it. He quoted from the story of Jonah. Surely 
where He went we should unhesitatingly follow. Some 
of these doubters ask, "Do you believe the Israelites 
were saved by looking at a brass serpent !" Jesus 
believed it. Why should not I ? He said, ' ' As Moses 
lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must 
the Son of Man be lifted up. " The church or preacher 
that does not accept the Bible as a whole might as 
well exchange it for any work of philosophy or a 
patent medicine almanac as far as the salvation, of 



THE GOSPEL OF CHRIST 29 

the world is concerned. If you are ashamed of the 
Bible get out of the pulpit. 

II. Where! 

Paul was facing the Greek and Roman classical 
world not only to preach the Gospel of Christ, but also 
to challenge the claims of any and all religions with 
which the Gospel came in conflict. Not ashamed of 
the Gospel in Rome, the center of the world's political 
power, the seat of religion and learning? Here were 
the famous schools of philosophy. Here was the Pan- 
theon with its many gods. Here was the throne of the 
Caesars terrorizing the world and exulting over the 
death of Jesus. These things Paul knew and they gave 
color to his ringing declaration, "I am not ashamed 
of the Gospel of Christ." The expression of his be- 
lief in the Gospel robbed him of his liberty in Rome 
as he was quite certain it would, but in spite of this 
knowledge, his declaration was none the less fearless. 
When Paul wrote these words, Rome was the metropo- 
lis of the world, the seat of universal empire. In im- 
perial splendor she sat upon her seven hills and all 
nations of the earth bowed at her feet. She had been 
enriched by the spoils of war and tributes of oriental 
monarchies, but greater riches she was to receive when 
Paul came with the Gospel of Christ. 

The world needs the same old Gospel today. I can 
bring you nothing better than the unadulterated truth 
of God.. I am not ashamed of the Gospel for what it 
has done for me, for what it has done for the world 



30 GREAT THINGS OF THE BIBLE 

and for what it will do for your city. Why do we 
not have the Bible read in our public schools? Are 
we ashamed of the Book? When I hear some men try 
to account for the fact that the Bible is not read in 
the schools it reminds me of what took place in the 
sharp rivalry between the cities of St. Paul and Min- 
neapolis. The question came up in Minneapolis as to 
whether or not the Bible should be read in the schools. 
This was left to a committee of three men. One 
member of the committee, a Christian, favored having 
it read. A second member was a Catholic and op- 
posed having it read. The third man was neutral 
and realized that his vote would determine the whole 
matter. He said he had never read the Bible and 
could not intelligently vote until he had read it. They 
adjourned, giving him two weeks to read the Book. 
When they met again he was still undecided and two 
weeks more were given him to read. In casting his 
vote he said, ' ' This is undoubtedly a very great book, 
a wonderfully good book. I think as a rule it should 
be read in the schools, but I vote against having it read 
in the schools of Minneapolis ; for by careful reading, 
I find that it mentions most favorably St. Paul many 
times, and I don 't find Minneapolis mentioned once. ' ' 
There are men who for like foolish reasons turn this 
old Book down. You cannot afford to be ashamed of 
it at any time or place. 

The Bible, like many of our mothers, is a little old- 
fashioned and decidedly plain; but who would be 
ashamed of either of them anywhere ? One of the most 



THE GOSPEL OF CHRIST 31 

pathetic things I ever saw was the picture of a poor, 
over-worked widow sitting at the kitchen table weep- 
ing over a letter received from her son in college. She 
had looked forward to the day when she might go to 
the college town and hear him deliver his graduating 
oration. It was this anticipated joy that enabled her 
to do from four to six washings a week to support 
herself and keep him in school. Now he writes, 
"Mother, don't come to see me graduate. Your 
clothes are not good enough. You would feel bad and 
I would be embarrassed. ' ' Poor, heart-broken mother ! 
Young man, never be ashamed of the mother who gave 
you birth and manicured her fingers over the wash- 
tub to give you an education. 

How different the story of the son of a southern 
widow whose excellent work made him the valedic- 
torian of his college class. He was also to participate 
in an oratorical contest and insisted upon his mother's 
presence to hear his oration and class address. With 
no little hesitation she came, clad in her plain dress 
and sunbonnet. Her presence gave him an inspira- 
tion which made his delivery masterful, and when the 
moment came for the awarding of the medal the great 
audience was breathless with interest. A gentleman 
stepped to the platform with the beautiful gold medal 
dangling from a ribbon which hung on his forefinger. 
After a few appropriate words he called the son of 
this widow to his side and announced that he was the 
winner of the prize. Instead of pinning the medal on 
his coat lapel, the honored youth, to the surprise of 



32 GREAT THINGS OF THE BIBLE 

all, stepped down to the plain little woman and said, 
"Mother, you wear this. You are worthy of it, for 
without you I never could have won it. ' ' The applause 
soon ceased and the audience wept in honor of an act 
so brave, so noble and so appropriate. There is little 
hope for a boy who is ashamed of his mother and his 
mother's Bible. 

III. What? 
What is this of which Paul was not ashamed when 
he set his face toward Rome 1 ' ' The Gospel of Christ. ' ' 
There are five things about this Gospel which must 
have prompted his courageous declaration. He was 
not ashamed of the antiquity of the Gospel of Christ. 
Some of the religions of the Roman Empire were 
based on myths whose fancied existence antedated 
history. To them Christianity was but the ' ' Infant of 
days. ' ' The Brahmin will tell us that for three thou- 
sand years his ancestors have worshipped the Indian 
Triad on the banks of the Ganges. The Hindu claims 
his faith was hoary with age when Christianity had 
its birth. Paul saw the mistake of dating the Chris- 
tian religion from the birth of Jesus. Christ incar- 
nate, crucified and risen from the dead was only the 
culmination of a revelation already ages old. Abra- 
ham believed in Christ and rejoiced to see His day 
approaching. Christianity is supported beyond chal- 
lenge by historic environment. The first simple rec- 
ords of our faith, as soon as man sinned and fell from 
communion with God, record the promise of salva- 
tion through Christ. Who wants a religion which 



THE GOSPEL OF CHRIST 33 

antedates man and sin? When Paul marched forth 
the champion of the Christian religion, he had 
espoused no new faith, but one as old as man himself. 
He was not ashamed of the prophetic character of 
the Gospel of Christ. Jesus came in fulfillment of a 
hundred predictions uttered by prophets of many 
ages. His coming was set in symbol and sacrifice, 
in type and ceremony. Every detail of His advent 
was so buttressed by prophecy that Paul stood uncom- 
promisingly for the Deity of Christ. Mysteries may 
surround the Incarnation but of the glorious fact he 
was not ashamed. Every circumstance and character- 
istic of Christ's ministry, the manner and details of 
His death and resurrection, and the spread of His 
Gospel to all nations, were clearly set forth in proph- 
ecy centuries before He came. In this respect the 
Gospel of Christ stands without a rival among the 
faiths of the world. The heroes of all false religions 
have been either myths or self appointed men for 
whom their disciples neither looked nor were pre- 
pared. Who prophecied the coming of Confucius or 
Mohammed? The heroes of all false religions were 
at best but teachers. Jesus stands on an entirely dif- 
ferent platform. He is not only a teacher, but a Savior 
as well. He alone can say, ' ' I am the Way, the Truth, 
and the Life" and prove His assertion by the power 
of God. Surely there is nothing in the life of Jesus 
of which we need be ashamed. He was a friend of 
publicans and sinners; tempted in all points like as 
we, yet without sin. His enemies were among the first 



34 GREAT THINGS OF THE BIBLE 

to lay at His feet a tribute to His goodness and glory. 
Nineteen centuries have passed since He walked among 
men and He is still the peerless Man, "The chief 
among ten thousand, the one altogether lovely. ' ' Who 
would be ashamed of this Divine One? 

Paul was not ashamed of the doctrine of the New 
Birth. The Gospel of Christ shows us not only right- 
eousness for us, but righteousness in us by regenera- 
tion, so that every saved man becomes a new creature 
in Christ. The one indispensable plank in any re- 
ligious platform is the Cross of Jesus Christ. Two 
methods of salvation have been repeatedly offered to 
the world. The one is merely ethical; the other, by 
the way of the blood-stained Cross. There can be no 
fellowship between the two. The first may be popular 
but no man was ever saved by any sort of ethical 
process. It is emphatically stated, "By the deeds of 
the law there shall no flesh be justified." The New 
Birth through the blood of Christ is no aristocratic 
privilege reserved for the favored few. It graciously 
makes provision for these, for all men are sinners, 
but it extends its unspeakable pivilege to the outcast 
and most degraded. The royal invitation is, "Who- 
soever will, let him come. ' ' Paul was not the minister 
to direct men to heaven by sending them over the 
ethical drawbridge which ever stands open, making 
passage to the Celestial City impossible. ' ' Ye must be 
born again, ' ' is the trumpet call of the Gospel and of 
this he was not ashamed. 

He was not ashamed of the faculty or organ by 



THE GOSPEL OF CHRIST 35 

which salvation is apprehended. It is not the faculty 
of reason, as many think. Reason is not large enough 
to be the organ of Christianity. To make it so would 
destroy the universality of the Christian religion. All 
men cannot reason but all men can see, therefore 
imagination or the faith faculty is the organ of Chris- 
tianity. Of this fact Paul was not ashamed nor need 
we be. The child and the untutored are not noted 
for their reasoning, but they possess an inherent imag- 
ination. Reason has its place in Christianity; it is 
to Christianity what the rudder is to a ship. The 
rudder directs the ship, but it cannot carry the cargo ; 
faith is the ship itself. The intellect may pare away 
the husk from soul food but faith alone can feed upon 
the delicious "Bread from Heaven." A window is a 
good thing in a house but you do not enter your house 
by the way of the window, you have a door for that 
purpose. Reason is an important factor in Christian- 
ity but the way to enter the holy temple of righteous- 
ness is by the door of faith. An adventurer may as 
well set out to explore the Mammoth Cave and expect 
to map it correctly with only the light of a glow- 
worm, as for one to endeavor grasping the whole of 
Christianity with the feeble light of man's reason. 
You might as well attempt to pull a box car through 
the barrel of a shot gun as to expect your reason to 
admit the whole of Christianity. 

Paul was not ashamed of the Bible doctrine of the 
immortality of the soul. The resurrection of Jesus 
proves the promise of immortality, not by argument 



36 GREAT THINGS OF THE BIBLE 

but by demonstration, and gives us the guarantee of a 
like resurrection. Did He not say, "Because I live, 
ye shall live also. I am the resurrection and the life ; 
he that believeth in me though he were dead, yet shall 
he live." We are taught in this Gospel that these 
bodies of ours, mortal though they be, shall be fash- 
ioned anew like unto His glorious body. The fact 
that Paul was not ashamed of the doctrine of im- 
mortality is clearly seen in that it was frequently the 
theme of his message to the Church. A memorable 
incidence of this is seen in the fifteenth chapter of 1. 
Corinthians. May God help us not to be ashamed of 
this transforming, soul saving, sin defeating Gospel 

of Christ. 

IV. Why? 

Briefly notice why Paul was not ashamed of this 
Gospel. We have his reason in these words, ' ' For it is 
the power of God unto salvation to every one that be- 
lieveth." Power was the pride and boast of Rome. 
She was proud of her imperial authority, proud of her 
victorious legions, proud of her world-wide domain, 
and proud of her wealth and learning. Power, not 
virtue, was the goal of her ambition. Her whole his- 
tory culminated in an apotheosis of power, personified 
in the Caesars. Paul does not say, "The Gospel of 
Christ is the wisdom of God," nor "the love of God," 
but "the power of God." That is the word to use to 
catch the ear of Rome. When he mentions power, 
Rome responds just as the subscriber on a party line 
telephone recognizes his ring and seems not to hear 



THE GOSPEL OF CHRIST 37 

^he many others. Rome listened as if to ask, "What 
have you to tell us of power, Paul ? Wherein does this 
new power of which you speak differ from Caesar 
power?'' He replies, "Caesar power is a destroying 
power; the power of God is a regenerating power, a 
divine power, a power which brings the dead to life, a 
power unto salvation, not limited to the favored few 
but offered to every one that believeth." 

Paul would introduce this new power into Rome ; he 
would set over against Roman militarism, and the 
brute force of Caesardom, the power of the Gospel, 
with full confidence as to the result. This domineer- 
ing subtlety which he faced was the infant reptile of 
which the poisonous brutality of modern Prussianism 
is the full-grown venemous adder. As Paul zealously 
offered Rome the regenerating, transforming Gospel as 
a gracious and everlasting substitute for the insidious 
serpent of despotism, the United States and her Allies 
with no less zeal have resolved in defense of their 
honor and their lives to exterminate from the earth 
the atrocious monster of Hohenzollern intrigue. Their 
death dealing blow at this malignant viper is being so 
effectively delivered that the whole of Kaiserdom has 
drawn its last natural breath, and the glad day with 
all certainty will dawn when liberty giving democracy 
shall triumph forever over brutal, barbaric autocracy, 
for we will keep everlastingly at it until this despic- 
able creature ceases to wiggle. Mark you, Paul relied 
implicitly upon the power of the Gospel and with all 
of our unprecedented splendid war equipment we must 



38 GREAT THINGS OF THE BIBLE 

not for one moment in this gigantic struggle divorce 
ourselves from the invincible power of the Gospel. 

God says, "My Word," . not Shakespeare's nor 
Emerson's, nor Browning's, nor Carlisle's; not some 
man's opinion about that Word, but "My Word," 
saith the Lord, ' ' shall not return unto Me void. ' ' You 
try reading Bacon, or Spencer, or Shakespeare to a 
poor, lost soul in sin; try to win back a wayward boy 
or restore a fallen girl with anything else than the 
Word of God and you will certainly fail ; but go into 
the redlight district or the rescue mission with the 
Word of God and read to your hearer, the repentance 
Psalm, the fifty-first, and you need not be surprised to 
see tears on the cheeks of the listener; then read the 
three-fold . parable in Luke fifteen, of the lost sheep, 
the lost coin and the wandering son, and you need not 
keep that up long to find that the Gospel of Christ is 
the power of God unto salvation. 

Paul uttered these words nineteen hundred years 
ago, but the Gospel has the same power today that it 
had then. It is still making drunkards sober and 
libertines pure; it is still bringing infidels to their 
knees and changing men from trickery and intrigue 
to accept the precepts of Jesus and practice the Golden 
Eule. You can preach Buddhism without Buddha, or 
Mohammedanism without Mohammed, but you cannot 
preach Christianity without Jesus Christ. When you 
preach Christ, you present a Gospel which is "the 
power of God unto salvation to every one that believ- 
eth. ' ' The simple condition upon which the power of 



THE GOSPEL OF CHRIST 39 

the Gospel will save is, "With the heart man believ- 
eth unto righteousness." "He that believeth shall be 
saved, but he that believeth not shall be damned." 
Faith accepts Christ; unbelief rejects Him. The be- 
liever has all things ; the unbeliever has nothing. Faith 
is the conducting medium through which the power 
of God flashes like an electric shock from God into the 
soul. May the Lord help every unsaved person in this 
audience to open the heart in belief to Christ and be 
eternally saved. 



Ill 

THE FOURFOLD GOSPEL 

' l A river went out of Eden, to water the garden, and 
from thence it was parted, and became into four 
heads." Gen. 2: 10. 

If , as one has said, ' ' The Old Testament is the New 
Testament concealed and the New Testament is the 
Old Testament revealed, ' ' then this river of four heads 
might be a type of the four G-ospels. The Bible stands 
among other books just as Jesus stands among other 
men. As He was both human and Divine even so the 
Bible is both inspired and natural. I most heartily 
believe in the inspiration of the Bible but we do well 
to know it is an inspired message rather than an in- 
spired manuscript. The message is unquestionably 
Divine but the manuscript breathes much of the 
human. Even the scholar, Paul, became so wonder- 
fully interested in his message that he sometimes for- 
got his grammar. That is much better than for one 
to be so interested in his grammar that he forgets his 
message. It need not be thought strange that Mat- 
thew, who wrote to the Jews, heard Jesus say : ' ' Take 
no money in your girdle, ' ' for the Jews carried money 
in their girdles ; while Luke heard Him say, ' ' Take no 
money in your purses,'' for he wrote to the Greeks, 
who carried money in their purses. Their manuscripts 
differ but the message is the same. What they both 

40 



THE FOURFOLD GOSPEL 41 

say is, ' ' Take no money in the thing wherein ye carry 
money." Some imagine they see discrepancies if not 
contradictions in the Gospels and ask why some one 
writer, instead of four, did not give us the complete 
account of the person and work of Jesus. It is hoped 
in this message to see the wisdom of God in giving us 
the four-fold account of the world's Savior, and that 
as we hear the four Evangelists speak we may appreci- 
ate more fully the common voice of their testimony 
and get a new vision of our Risen Lord. 

I. Matthew's Message. 

Had Matthew wanted a text for his Gospel he could 
have chosen Zech. 9:9. "Behold thy King," for his 
theme is, Christ the King, the Son of David. He was a 
Jew and an official of the Roman empire. Jesus called 
him from collecting taxes to be one of His disciples. 
He soon made a feast for his new Master and saw in 
Him the fulfillment of prophetic promises of a coming 
Messiah who was to become the King of the chosen 
people of God. His Gospel is God's last message to 
the Jews. He quotes one hundred Old Testament 
prophecies to show them that Jesus is their King. It is 
in this Gospel alone that we read, "And thou Bethle- 
hem * * * out of thee shall come a Governor, that 
shall rule My people Israel. ' ' He traces the descent of 
Jesus from Abraham the father of their nation, 
through David, for the triple purpose of proving that 
He belonged to the royal line, was heir to the throne 
and the Promised King of the Jews. He rests the 



42 GREAT THINGS OF THE BIBLE 

logic of his message upon Old Testament revelation, 
that the Jews might see the exact correspondence of 
Jesus in the promised Messiah. He draws two hun- 
dred and fifty comparisons of the great Teacher and 
the promised King. The historical character of the 
one is placed side by side with the prophetic character 
of the other. He continually points to the Old Testa- 
ment for proof that could not fail to have great con- 
vincing power to the candid Jew. 

It is in this Gospel that John the Baptist comes 
preaching "the kingdom," saying, "Repent, for the 
kingdom of Heaven is at hand." In Mark and Luke 
he preaches "the baptism of repentance for the re- 
mission of sins. ' ' Matthew uses the term ' ' kingdom of 
Heaven" about thirty times. He records fourteen of 
our Lord's parables and eleven of them open with 
words like these, "The kingdom of Heaven is like a 
net," or "The kingdom of Heaven is like unto 
leaven." In this Gospel we read, "The kingdom of 
Heaven is like a certain King, which made a marriage 
for His son, and sent out His servants to call them 
that were bidden, but they would not come." In 
Luke's Gospel it reads, "A certain Man made a great 
supper, and bade many; but they would not come." 
The King and the servants do not appeal to Luke, it is 
the Man he sees. With him, in the twenty parables 
he records, it is always "A certain Man." "A cer- 
tain Man planted a vineyard. ' ' In Mark also, the title 
of honor is dropped; it is always "A certain Man." 
In Matthew alone do we find such words of authority 



THE FOURFOLD GOSPEL 43 

as "Then shall the King say to them on His right 
hand, Come ye blessed of my Father, inherit the king- 
dom prepared for you from the foundation of the 
world. * * * Then shall He say also unto them 
on His left hand, Depart from me, Ye cursed, into 
everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels. ' ' 
It is Matthew who hears John the Baptist say of 
Jesus, "Whose fan is in His hand, and He will thor- 
oughly purge His floor, and gather His wheat into the 
garner ; but He will burn up the chaff with unquench- 
able fire," — language perfectly suited to the Lord of 
the Kingdom, but for this very reason unnoted by 
Mark who sees in Jesus the Divine Servant. When 
Jesus and His disciples, passing through the corn fields 
on the Sabbath, plucked the grain, "The Pharisees 
said, Behold, thy disciples do that which is not lawful 
to do upon the Sabbath day. But He said unto them, 
Have ye never read what David did V 7 If they accept 
acts of King David can they not accept like acts of 
their Divine King ? In John 's Gospel, under a similar 
charge, His reply is not "what David did," but as the 
Son of God He answers, ' ' My Father worketh hitherto 
and I work." Mark and Luke follow Matthew's ac- 
count until Matthew heard Jesus declare, "But I say 
unto you that in this place is One greater than the 
temple, ' ' and " If ye had known what this meaneth, I 
will have mercy and not sacrifice, ye would have not 
condemned the guiltless." Words found in no other 
Gospel, but quite fitting here as coming from their 
King. 



44 GREAT THINGS OF THE BIBLE 

It is Matthew who gives us the picture of the mother 
coming with her two sons, James and John, to Jesus 
with the petition, ' ' Grant that these my two sons may 
sit, the one on thy right hand and the other on thy 
left, in thy kingdom.'''' Matthew is the only evangelist 
who records the miracle of the fish containing the tax 
money. Nothing that had to do with taxes would 
escape the eye of this collector of customs. He alone 
records the bargain of Judas to betray Jesus for thirty 
pieces of silver. His has been called the business man's 
Gospel. He records the five lengthy discourses of the 
Lord. In writing of Jesus he frequently declared, 
"Then was fulfilled that which was spoken by the 
prophet," but the children of the Kingdom knew not 
the Heir when He appeared, nor would they accept 
Him as their King. 

II. Mark's Message. 

Had Mark wanted a text for his Gospel he could 
have chosen Isaiah 42:1, "Behold my Servant," for 
his theme is Jesus the Servant of Jehovah. Mark him- 
self was an humble servant. "They had John, whose 
surname was Mark, for their minister," and Paul 
writes, "Take Mark and bring him with thee, for he 
is profitable to me for the ministry. ' ' When we turn 
to the Gospel of him who was living to serve, we see 
in our Lord the Servant of Jehovah. Mark's order of 
events is the one common to the first three Gospels. 
It is believed to have been the first of the Gospel nar- 
ratives written which accounts for its dominant order. 



THE FOURFOLD GOSPEL 45 

Where Matthew diverges from Mark's arrangement, 
Luke converges to it ; and where Luke 's order differs 
from that of Mark, Matthew supports Mark. Mat- 
thew and Luke never run parallel except where they 
follow Mark 's order of events. Mark wrote his Gospel 
for the Romans or Gentile Christians who were looking 
for no promised Deliverer; hence little attention is 
given to fulfilled prophecies. These were men of 
power and regarded that man most worthy who was 
the greatest worker, conqueror and organizer. Mark 
strikes the key-note by showing that in deeds of power 
Jesus surpassed their Caesars and proved Himself the 
Servant of Jehovah. 

Everywhere we can see the mark of a servant in this 
Gospel. The events in the life of Jesus are passed in 
rapid succession. He records no long sermons, gives 
no genealogy, makes no reference to the miraculous 
birth and the adoration of the wise men as does Mat- 
thew; he mentions no boyhood at Nazareth or visit 
to Jerusalem at the age of twelve, as given by Luke; 
neither does he refer to His pre-existence with the 
Father as found in John. All these are important in 
their place, but Mark comes at once to His service. 
He gives us three miracles of this Wonder- Worker in 
the first chapter while in Matthew's Gospel we are in 
the eighth chapter before we read the account of the 
first miracle. There is a detail and yet a brevity in 
Mark's Gospel characteristic of the servant. Matthew 
takes eleven verses to tell of the temptation, Luke 
takes thirteen verses and Mark takes but two verses, 



46 GREAT THINGS OF THE BIBLE 

yet he alone tells of the "wild beasts/' The gladi- 
ators of Rome would understand what it mean to be 
* ' with the wild beasts. ' ' 

We are impressed when we read the first chapter of 
Mark to find that the word " immediately' ' occurs ten 
times. True, it is not always translated "immedi- 
ately" but it is the same word of prompt action. 
"Forthwith," "By and By," "Straightway," 
"Anon," always from the same Greek root. This 
word occurs but eighty times in the New Testament, 
and is found forty-one times in Mark's Gospel. The 
only short chapter in the Gospel is the last one : The 
story is such a continuous whole that the committee 
could find no place to divide it into chapters. As it 
now stands every chapter but three begins with a con- 
junction and with one exception that conjunction is 
1 ' and. ' ' Jesus did this and that and that. Of the six 
hundred eighty-eight verses, four hundred sixty-two 
of them begin with the word ' ' and. ' ' I have wondered 
where the printer ever found enough capital A's to 
put it into print; five hundred and forty-two are re- 
quired. The word "and" is used no less than twelve 
hundred ninety times in Mark's Gospel. 

In this Gospel we do not see so much of Christ's 
claim on man, but rather man 's claim on Christ. He is 
careful to impress us that we do not by service be- 
come sons, but by sonship we may become true ser- 
vants. He is more occupied with the doings of Christ 
than with the teachings of Christ. For this reason he 
records but four parables, and they each have a great 



THE FOURFOLD GOSPEL 47 

lesson in service, but he records eighteen of the mir- 
acles of the Divine Worker. In the corresponding 
period of Christ's life when Matthew heard the prom- 
ised King preach His sermon of "Woes," Mark saw 
the Servant of Jehovah all absorbed beholding a widow 
giving her mites. No true service, however humble, 
escaped the eye of Jesus, and Mark does not fail to 
record His words, ' ' Whosoever shall give you a cup of 
cold water to drink in My name, I say unto you, he 
shall not lose his reward. ' ' 

It is Mark who tells us that when the little children 
were brought that Jesus might touch them, "He took 
them up in His arms and blessed them." Several 
times he is careful to note the details of the loving 
service of our Lord. In Mark's Gospel it frequently 
occurs, and in no other Gospel is it noted, that Jesus 
was so thoroughly at the disposal of others ' ' He could 
not so much as eat." It is Mark who tells us Jesus 
exhorted the overworked disciples, "Come ye your- 
selves apart into a desert place, and rest a while." 
But there was no rest for Jesus. So much is He re- 
garded as a Servant in this Gospel, that He is never 
called ' ' Lord ' ' until after the resurrection. The Gos- 
pel closes with this significant statement, "They went 
forth and preached, the Lord working with them, and 
confirming the word with signs following. He is the 
Worker, though risen. There is nothing of service 
that escapes the eye of Mark, whose life was given to 
humble service in his Master's name. After reading 
this Gospel we can appreciate this statement, ' ' 



48 GREAT THINGS OF THE BIBLE 

are those servants whom the Lord when He cometh 
shall find so doing. Verily, He shall gird Himself and 
make them sit down to meat, and He will come forth 
and serve them." May the Lord through Mark's mes- 
sage inspire us to more faithful service. 

III. Luke's Message. 

Had Luke wanted a text for his Gospel he could 
have chosen Zech. 6:12, "Behold the Man," for his 
theme is, Jesus the Son of Man. Luke was an educated 
Greek physician. Paul calls him ' ' The beloved physi- 
cian. ' ' He was a native of Antioch in Syria, and lab- 
ored with Paul in his missionary tours among the 
Gentiles. He wrote his Gospel to the Greeks, who 
worshipped man, and made their gods in the likeness 
of themselves. They regarded one of superior intel- 
lect, becoming habits, and graceful action as nearest 
their ideal. Luke saw in Jesus the perfect Man and 
so writes of Him to them, tracing His descent from 
common humanity. He makes little reference to the 
fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy in which they 
would not be interested as were the Jews to whom 
Matthew wrote. 

Luke gives prominence to the human feelings of 
Christ. He uses the name Jesus which is expressive 
of the human element of the Lord, two hundred forty- 
six times. He gives in detail the circumstances of the 
birth and infancy of the Holy Child. He alone re- 
cords the three inspired songs of the Nativity. We 
would expect in Matthew to hear the Magi ask, 



THE FOURFOLD GOSPEL 49 

"Where is He that is born King of the Jews?" but in 
Lnke the angel sings, "Behold, I bring yon good tid- 
ings of great joy, which shall be to all people ; for unto 
you is born a Saviour; and this shall be a sign unto 
you: Ye shall find the Babe wrapped in swaddling 
clothes, lying in a manger. " It is here and here only 
weare told how "the Child grew;" how the teachers 
and doctors who heard Him at the age of twelve in 
the temple ' l were astonished at His understanding and 
answers;" how "He went down and was subject unto 
His parents ; ' ' and how ' ' He increased in wisdom and 
stature, and in favor with God and man. ' ' Thus, Luke 
shows how Jesus joined Himself to us in birth and 
childhood, that, being Himself a Man, He might in 
His own blessed life bring us near to God. 

It is Luke who writes of His sermon in the Naza- 
reth Synagogue, in which He tells His fellow-towns- 
men of His Life's mission, that His Gospel is not for 
Jews only but for all people. In commissioning the 
twelve, Matthew heard Jesus say, "Go not into the 
way of the Gentiles, and into any city of the Samari- 
tans enter ye not ; but go rather to the lost sheep of the 
house of Israel." Luke simply says, "He sent them 
forth to preach," then adds, "they departed, preach- 
ing the Gospel everywhere." The story of the peni- 
tent thief and the prodigal son (and Luke alone re- 
cords them) must ever render his Gospel the Good 
News of free, full, and present Salvation. 

It is Br. Luke, and he alone, who tells us that when 
Jesus was agonizing in the garden, "His sweat was 



50 GREAT THINGS OF THE BIBLE 

as it were, great drops of blood falling down to the 
ground." This unusual thing would not escape the 
eye of the physician. Again it is Luke alone who 
tells us that Jesus was circumcised the eighth day, a 
writ, the observance of which, the physician would not 
fail to notice. Luke records four miracles unnoted by 
the other Evangelists, and they are all special cures 
effected by the Divine Physician. They are "The 
widow 's son raised, the crooked woman made straight, 
the curing of the dropsy, and restoring the ear which 
Peter severed in the Garden. Seventeen of his twenty- 
two miracles are cures. He records fourteen parables 
not found in the other Gospels, and they fairly tinge 
with the problems of human life and common duty, 
showing the Perfect Man's teaching and attitude just 
where it is most needed. Among them are ' * The Good 
Samaritan, The Prodigal Son, and The Rich Man and 
Lazarus. 

This is the Gospel of prayer. Luke records two 
parables on prayer, 11 : 5-8 ; 18 : 1-8. It is in this Gos- 
pel only we are told that at His baptism He "was 
praying ' ' when the Holy Spirit came upon Him ; that 
when He cleansed the leper, "He withdrew Himself 
and prayed" ; that the choice of the twelve followed a 
night of ceaseless prayer, "He continued all night in 
prayer, and when it was day, He called His disciples 
unto Him, and of them He chose twelve"; that Peter's 
famous confession was made ' ' as Jesus was alone pray- 
ing" ; that the Transfiguration occurred as He prayed, 
' ' He went up into a mountain, and as He prayed, the 



THE FOURFOLD GOSPEL 51 

fashion of His countenance was changed"; and that 
the Lord's Prayer was given in answer to a request 
from His disciples who, ' ' as H e was praying when He 
ceased said, ' ' Lord, teach us to pray. ' ' Fifteen times 
in this Gospel we are brought to see the prayer life 
of Jesus. Surely if He, the Perfect Man, prayed so 
much we cannot afford to pray so little. It is Luke 
who tells us that His first and last words upon the 
Cross were prayers. In the first, He prayed the Father 
to forgive His executioners, and in the last, His dying 
words, "Father, into Thy hands I commend my 
spirit." May the Lord teach us so to pray. 

IV. John's Message. 

Had John wanted a text for his Gospel, he could 
have chosen Isa. 40: 9, "Behold your God," for his 
theme is, Jesus, the Emmanuel. John was the young- 
est of the twelve apostles and is spoken of as the • ' one 
whom Jesus loved." His Gospel was written much 
later than the other three and has a special message 
both for the Christian and the unsafed. He was an 
eye-witness of the Crucifixion and gives many details 
of it omitted in the other Gospels. His is a book on 
Christian Evidences. He records many conversations 
with Jesus and shows Him often among His friends. 
It is in this Gospel that we have a definition of a 
friend. From beginning to end he represents Jesus 
as the Incarnate God. His own words are, "These 
things are written that ye might believe that Jesus is 
the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye 



52 GREAT THINGS OF THE BIBLE 

might have life through His Name." This definite 
object is seen in every chapter of his Gospel. He 
makes nse of the word " believe' • one hundred one 
times, the word "life" sixty-five times, and the word 
"signs" forty-seven times. He does not ask us to be- 
lieve without some reason for our doing so. He gives 
seven witnesses who testify that Jesus is the Son of 
God. Jesus calls God His Father twenty-one times in 
Matthew, three times in Mark, and eleven times in 
Luke ; only thirty-five times in the first three Gospels. 
But in John He calls God His Father one hundred 
eight times. 

John the Baptist, who preached a "coming king- 
dom" in Matthew's Gospel and "repentance" in 
Luke's, here says, "I saw and bear record that this is 
the Son of God." John gives us at length the talks 
Jesus had with His disciples, in which He seeks to 
make clear to them that even though He was their 
Messiah He would not occupy the throne of David, for 
His Kingdom was in His Father's House where He 
was going to prepare a place for those who loved Him 
and were faithful unto death. The evening with 
Nicodemus, one of the nineteen personal interviews 
with Jesus, was on the all important question of how 
we may become sons of God. It should have the early 
place given it in this Gospel which reveals Jesus as 
the Son of God. Some one has said that the Gospel 
of John is full of little Bibles. It is indeed the land 
of promise flowing with milk and honey. It is frag- 
rant with the aroma of celestial fields. But if all the 



THE FOURFOLD GOSPEL 53 

words of Jesus were as tender as those found in the 
fourteenth and fifteenth chapters of John, we would 
be as badly spoiled as the sons of Eli, who would 
certainly have smarted from the whip of small cords 
had they ministered in the temple in the days of the 
Master. Fortunately we have the Gospel of Matthew 
with its Sermon on the Mount, its woes pronounced 
upon sinful cities, its denunciation of the Pharisees, 
and its picture of the last Judgment. 

Matthew continually looks back into the prophe- 
cies and shows their fulfillment in Jesus; his is the 
Gospel of the past. Mark sees in Jesus the Servant, 
the satisfaction of daily needs ; his is the Gospel of the 
present. Luke delights in telling us of coming good; 
his is the Gospel of the future. While John soars 
above all limits of time, unveiling the everlasting 
issues; his is the Gospel of eternity. Matthew gives 
a genealogy of Christ— a king must have a royal line- 
age — he shows Ham to be a descendant of David the 
great king. Mark gives no genealogy, a servant needs 
only character. Luke gives one, the biographer of a 
Perfect Man shows Him to be the Son of Adam. While 
John simply says, "The Word was made flesh and 
dwelt among us." Matthew has about three hundred 
fifty verses peculiar to his Gospel, not found in the 
others ; Mark has sixty-eight ; Luke five hundred forty ; 
and more than one-half of John 's message is not given 
in the other Gospels. Matthew does not speak of 
Christ's Ascension, but leaves the Risen King on earth 
with His subjects. Mark gives His Resurrection and 



54 GREAT THINGS OF THE BIBLE 

Ascension ; the Divine Servant having finished His 
labors returns to His reward. Luke gives the Perfect 
Man's Resurrection and Ascension, and notes that He 
promises the Comforter to His followers. John goes 
a step further and tells us that the Emmanuel is com- 
ing back to receive us unto Himself, that where He 
is there we may be also. 

Why should it be thought that there are conflicts 
between the four Gospels ? If four men were to photo- 
graph the same building from different positions their 
pictures might be expected to materially differ, but 
they would have much in common. We may so regard 
the four Gospels as separate photographs of the Man 
of Galilee. Matthew, sitting at the receipt of customs, 
sees in Jesus the Promised King, and He was the King. 
Mark, from the path of humble service, sees in Jesus 
the Divine Servant ; that He came not to be ministered 
unto but to minister, and He was a servant. Luke, the 
physician, takes a straight front view of the Lord and 
shows Him as the Son of Man, and He certainly was a 
man. John, the devout, comes later and takes, as it 
were, an interior view and shows us the Son of God, 
and he too is right, for Jesus was the Emmanuel. 

What are the common lines in these four Pictures? 
Not His birth, nor His age, nor His baptism, nor His 
transfiguration; but the cross and resurrection, the 
death of the flesh and the life of the spirit. Other 
things may be obscure but these stand out in clear 
lines. The promised King suffers and dies ; the Divine 
Servant suffers and dies : the Perfect Man suffers and 



THE FOURFOLD GOSPEL 55 

dies ; and the Son of God suffers and dies. The Prom- 
ised King rises ; the Divine Servant rises ; the Perfect 
Man rises ; and the Son of God rises. In all four Gos- 
pels Jesus is betrayed by one of His followers and 
denied by another; in all He is judged by the Priests 
and Scribes and Elders; in all Barabbas is preferred 
before Him ; in all H]e is crucified, and numbered with 
the transgressors ; in all He dies ; in all He has a grave 
prepared by others ; and in all He rises and talks with 
men. Finally it must be noted that the Deity of Christ 
stands out in clear lines in all four of these Pictures. 
Matthew's King was God's son; Mark's Servant was 
God's Son; Luke's Physician was God's Son, and in 
John's Gospel the doctrine of His Deity is given 
double emphasis as a fitting climax to the story of His 
life. Oh, that He may become more precious to us 
each time we study these four inspired Pictures. 



IV 

THE DIAMOND NECKLACE 



"My son, keep thy father's commandment, and for- 
sake not the law of thy mother : Bind them continually 
upon thine heart, and tie them about thy neck. When 
thou goest, it shall lead thee; when thou sleepest, it 
shall keep thee; and when thou awakest, it shall talk 
with thee." — Proverbs, vi: 20-22. 



In these couplets Solomon uses poetical metaphors 
which liken the admonitions of the Bible to parental 
solicitude. The commandments of the Lord were to 
be bound upon the heart and tied about the neck. 
The ornamentation of the body antedates history, 
and the costume of the ancients was incomplete 
without an adorning necklace. As soldiers carry 
identification plates near their hearts, young men 
display attractive ties and young women wear spar- 
kling lavallieres, so we are to treasure in our hearts 
the laws of God and regard them as a Diamond Neck- 
lace to grace our lives. If I had in my hands a score 
or more of diamonds I would speak to you of 
"them"' but if a jeweler were to set them in a beau- 
tiful necklace I would speak of "it" as I held it 
before your enraptured eyes. Solomon 's exhortation 
about "them", the diamond like commandments, 
transcends into a triple promise about "it", the 
Bible necklace, which captivates the true child of 
God in life's dressing room. 

56 



THE DIAMOND NECKLACE 57 

I. WiHAT WE SHOULD DO WITH THE BIBLE. 

There is a dual condition upon which the three- 
fold promise is given. That is, if we do two things 
with the Bible, it will do three things for us. The 
first charge is, "Bind them continually upon thine 
heart". In later years David said, "I have hid Thy 
"Word in my heart ". Commenting upon this dec- 
laration of David's, an old Scotchman once said, 
"That was a good thing in a good place for a good 
purpose." The reason for binding the gracious 
truths of the Bible upon the heart is for self develop- 
ment, for one's own spiritual life and growth in 
grace. The New Testament injunction is, "As new- 
born babes, desire the sincere milk of the Word, that 
ye may grow thereby." Modern phraseology for 
binding continually about the heart would be, ' ' Com- 
mitting to memory", or, "Learning by heart." "We 
do not commit what we read in the daily papers. 
It may interest us much to-day but is forgotten 
to-morrow for the reason that it is of passing or 
momentary concern. ' ' Of the making of books there 
is no end", and we read many of them with pleasure 
and profit, but only those of exceptional merit ever 
bare a second reading. That is a rare book which 
reaches the second edition. Most authors live to 
attend the funeral of their own publication. But 
the Book whose truths we are enjoined to bind upon 
our hearts is translated into every language of the 
world and after proclaiming its message for twenty 



58 GREAT THINGS OF THE BIBLE 

centuries, enjoys a circulation exceeding that of any 
other one hundred books combined. 

Some have the Bible in Morocco binding, others 
have it in Sealskin, but it is better to have it in shoe 
leather. Indeed, Christians are "Written epistles 
read and known of all men, ' ' and their edition of the 
Bible is more frequently read by the unsaved than 
is the Authorized Version. We must not only go 
through the Bible but must also permit it to go 
through us. The Bible is a mine rather than a gar- 
den and must be excavated rather than cultivated. 
The luxuries of a garden may be plucked by the 
tempted passing guest, while the treasures of a mine 
lie deeply hidden, but amply reward him who dili- 
gently seeks them. The threefold promise of the 
text is not made to those who go gardening in the 
Bible, strolling down its shaded avenues catching 
only the aroma of its more fragrant flowers and pick- 
ing here and there a choice cluster of its luscious 
fruit. It is rather to those who with the persistence 
of the miner penetrate the granite of its literal 
stratum which overlays the inexhaustible riches of 
its spiritual deposit. Reading the Bible in a hurry 
is like trying to swallow a cocoanut whole; what 
meat is not lost is gulped down without tasting and 
the milk which is not spilled produces strangulation. 
A thorough and practical Bible knowledge is ac- 
quired by the diligent perusal of a responsive heart 
rather than by the dress parade of a presumed supe- 
rior intellect. 



THE DIAMOND NECKLACE 59 

''Bind them continually upon thine heart." The 
precepts of the Lord are so precious they should be 
bound about the most vital organ of the body. That 
which a man carries in his hand he may lay aside 
and forget, that which he wears upon his clothing 
may be torn from him, but that which is bound upon 
his heart will remain there until life departs. Em- 
phasis must be placed upon the "continually". Few 
things contribute more to our religious development 
than constancy. There are many professed followers 
of the Lord who are afflicted with "Fickleitis". They 
are as variable as the wind and as changeable as the 
moon. Such oscillating church members remind us 
of the farmer's well which was a splendid one except 
it would dry up in summer and freeze over in winter. 
True religion is not the intermittent splash over the 
dam of a fluctuating stream, but is rather the invari- 
able flow of an artesian well. He who appropriates 
portions of the Bible at his own convenience answers 
Jeremiah 's description of vacillating Israel when he 
said, "They have # * * hewn them out cisterns, bro- 
ken cisterns, that can hold no water", but he who 
binds the Word of God "continually" upon his heart 
verifies the promise of Jesus, ' ' The water that I shall 
give him shall be in him a well of water springing 
up into everlasting life." 

The second injunction relative to the truths of the 
Bible with which the child of God must comply if 
he would claim the triple promise is, ' ' Tie them about 
thy neck." The word "continually" is not repeated 



60 GREAT THINGS OF THE BIBLE 

but the same constancy is unquestionably to be im- 
plied. If the binding of Bible precepts upon the 
heart is for self invigoration, the tying of them about 
the neck is the effective means of transmitting this 
vital animation to others with whom we associate. 
It is also a gracious and deserving acknowledgement 
of the Royal Guest in the throne room of the heart. 
An ornament is never more conspicuous than when 
worn about the neck. Solomon would have us con- 
stantly witnessing of our possession of Heavenly 
Graces by wearing about our necks the emblem of 
divine revelation. The New Testament expression 
of this twofold obligation is the familiar words of 
Paul in the tenth of Romans, "With the heart man 
believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth 
confession is made unto salvation/ ' 

"When Solomon exhorts us to make of the Bible a 
necklace he does not mean that we are to parade 
it in a way which would rob it of its sacredness, but 
that we are to seek every opportunity to cheerfully 
avow our faith in its proffered mercies. Under no 
circumstances are we to permit a blush to mantle 
our cheeks when we are called Christians nor are 
we ever to speak with bated breath concerning the 
things of God, neither should we ever feel called 
upon to offer an apology for our devotion to this old 
Book, but should count true religion and a love for 
the Bible our richest ornament. A man ridiculing 
Christ and Christianity on a street corner in Liver- 
pool sensed his cosmopolitan audience and believing 



THE DIAMOND NECKLACE 61 

that his bold denunciations had cowed any Christians 
present said, ''If anyone has a word for Christ I 
will give him a chance to speak now." The intimi- 
dated believers, not wearing the Diamond Necklace, 
offered no reply. The death like silence was broken 
when two young women stepped forward saying, 
"With your permission, sir, we should like to sing 
for Him." With sweet appealing tones they sang 
"Stand Up, Stand Up for Jesus". The hearty ap- 
plause which they received was a confession that the 
professed Christians present had not been wearing 
the Necklace. 

A young man who for a few months had been a 
faithful member of the church informed his friends 
of his intention of going to the north woods to 
secure a position in one of the logging camps. They 
advised him not to go, warning him of the profanity 
and godlessness of the lumber- jacks, saying, "They 
will scoff at your religion and mock your devotions. ' ' 
Disregarding their counsel, he departed as planned, 
thinking himself equal to any test. Upon his return 
eighteen months later, his friends asked if he had 
not found it as they predicted, and how he met the 
jeers of the irreligious woodsmen. "Yes," said he, 
"they are a rather tough bunch, but they didn't 
bother me. I stole a march on them; they did not so 
much as suspicion that I was a Christian." He was 
not wearing the Diamond Necklace "continually" 
and returned home a backslider, just like some 
you have in this city. This young man disregarded 



62 GREAT THINGS OF THE BIBLE 

the admonition of Jesus, "Let your light so shine 
before men that they may see your good works and 
glorify your Father which is in heaven." He put 
his light under a bushel rather than on a candle stick. 
A colporteur distributing Bibles in a mission field 
was driven from a village whose inhabitants rejected 
the Book. Determining that he would leave the Bible 
to speak for itself, he dropped a copy in the street 
as he was departing. Returning six weeks later to 
his base of supplies, he again entered the hostile 
village. The first man to meet him at the city gate 
detained him with the question, "Are you not the 
Bible man?" He had every reason to believe that 
an affirmative answer would bring him severe per- 
secution, but he would not be untrue to his God by 
concealing the Diamond Necklace. "Yes," said he, 
"I am the Bible man". "Then welcome to our vil- 
lage ; we desire your Book, ' ' was the amazing reply. 
In wonderment he asked, "Are you not the people 
who a few weeks ago cast stones at me?" "So we 
did", answered the man, "but a great change has 
come over us and we all want the Book". A mer- 
chant in the village had picked up the Bible from 
the street, which the colporteur had purposely drop- 
ped, and in his economy tore away leaf after leaf 
to serve as wrappers for groceries and notions pur- 
chased at his store. Thus diamonds from this Neck- 
lace went into every hut of the village, dispelling 
pagan darkness by their celestial luster. Because 
one man had the Word of God tied continually about 



THE DIAMOND NECKLACE 63 

his neck, many who had formerly been hostile to 
Christianity now graced their lives by putting on 
this Diamond Necklace, and their village became the 
center of Christian activity. May we earnestly heed 
Solomon 's solicitous appeal and comply with the two- 
fold condition of the gracious promise by treasuring 
continually the words of God in our hearts and wit- 
nessing at every opportunity for the Lord. 

II. What the Bible Will Do for Us. 

"When thou goest, it shall lead thee." This Book 
is first to be a guide to the one who has met the 
conditions of the promise. We must all admit our 
need of a guide on the unknown pathway of life, and 
with Jeremiah confess, "Oh, Lord, I know that the 
way of man is not in himself; it is not in man who 
walketh to direct his steps." What the conrpass is 
to the adventurous mariner, that the Bible is to the 
prudent pilgrim. Many have been directed by it 
from the hazardous ways of unbelief into the secure 
paths of righteousness, verifying the promise, 
"Whatsoever he doeth, who delights in the law of 
the Lord, shall prosper." The cross-country trav- 
eler who disregards his road map and turns from the 
pike on the highway, choosing rather the bypath 
through boggy jungles, is no more irrational than 
he who prefers to grope his way through the lacer- 
ating thickets of unbelief rather than follow this 
infallible Guide on the highway to heaven. 

A country boy entered a city and applied for a 



64 GREAT THINGS OF THE BIBLE 

position as clerk in a store. There were many appli- 
cants, but he obtained an interview with the pro- 
prietor, and was asked to show his recommendation 
papers. He opened his grip and in looking for a 
letter from an influential friend, a small Bible drop- 
ped out on the floor. "What have you there?" 
asked the merchant sharply. - ' The Bible my mother 
gave me upon leaving home for the city", he calmly 
replied. "You do not mean to practice the precepts 
of that Book here in the city, do you?" was the 
further query. The young man, standing erect, said, 
"That is the promise I made my mother, sir, and I 
will keep that promise or return home to her." Ab- 
solute sincerity showed in his face and it was impos- 
sible to doubt him. "Young man," said the mer- 
chant, "you have different credentials than the ap- 
plicant just preceding you, who drew from his pocket 
with his letter of introduction two or three cards of 
a much used deck. I myself am not a Christian, but 
I appreciate the principles of that Book, and upon 
your pledge to practice those principles you need no 
further recommendation ; the position is yours. ' ' The 
fidelity of this humble clerk to the Diamond Neck- 
lace secured him the position and his loyalty to it 
won him steady promotion until he became associ- 
ated as one of the partners of this mercantile firm. 

The Mammoth Cave of Kentucky is a stupendous 
piece of Nature's subterranean architecture. One 
may walk fourteen miles in this cave without seeing 
sunlight ; the roof in places is one hundred feet high. 



THE DIAMOND NECKLACE 65 

There are cascades falling from invisible heights to 
invisible depths. The darkness is so dense that two 
sightseers who became lost from their guide were 
found a few hours later completely demented. Even 
in the presence of a guide, one feels like holding his 
breath as he walks across bridges which seem to 
span the bottomless abyss. A young man, disre- 
garding the admonition of his friends, boasted that 
he would see this cave alone, that nobody but a 
coward had need of a guide. He started on his 
foolhardy adventure carrying in one hand a large 
ball of cord, one end of which he fastened at the 
cave's entrance; in the other hand he carried a torch 
to reveal the wonders of the cave and point out any 
dangers which he might encounter. The ball grew 
smaller as he penetrated the deep recesses of the 
cave. He passed safely and cautiously around and 
across dangerous places enrapt in wonderment at 
the marvelous grandeur. His apparent achievement, 
however, proved a calamity when he stumbled over 
something at his feet and fell full length, breaking 
the cord and smothering his light. He was startled 
at the awful darkness, but braving himself to the 
situation he reached into his pocket for a match to 
reproduce the extinguished torch. The dampness of 
the cave had so moistened his clothing and the 
matches as to make it utterly impossible to produce 
light. 

What was the bewildered man to do? He crawled 
about on his hands and knees searching for the 



66 GREAT THINGS OF THE BIBLE 

broken cord, enlarging his circle with each round. 
After what seemed to him an age, the cord was 
finally found and he started with exceeding caution 
to follow its path through the impenetrable darkness. 
The tension had drawn the cord in a more direct line 
than he had taken in his zigzag course by the aid 
of his torch, and many times he found himself on 
the brink of a precipice where one more step would 
have meant certain death. After many perilous 
hours, working his way by inches, he finally saw the 
faint evidences of approaching light, and came at 
last to the cave's mouth, not the daring black-haired 
youth who entered the cave unaccompanied, but a 
nervous wreck whose hair had suddenly turned gray. 
Trembling with fright and reeling in weakness he 
went out, not boasting of what he had accomplished 
but advising that every visitor to the cave should 
secure a guide. There are indifferent youths who 
should profit by this young man's sad experience. 
They defiantly set out to explore their future with 
the torch of reason and the golden cord of promised 
years, independent of the proffered Guide who alone 
knows the pitfalls and liberates the traveler from 
the jaws of eternal death, lighting his way by the 
Lamp of His "Word to the gates of the Celestial City. 
"When thou sleepest it will keep thee." Not only 
is the Bible an indispensable guide, but it is also an 
incessant and gracious guardian. The traveler who 
has been directed with certainty and safety on his 
way through the day must not be left unguarded 



THE DIAMOND NECKLACE 67 

through the watches of the night to the ravages of 
prowling beasts of prey. It is the privilege of every 
Christian to be "kept by the power of God." The 
Lord is as solicitous for His most undeserving child 
as He was for His vineyard, of which Isaiah heard 
Him say: "I the Lord do keep it; I will water it 
every moment ; lest any hurt it, I will keep it night 
and day. ' ' David further assures us, ' ' He that keep- 
eth thee will not slumber. * * * The Lord is 
thy keeper. * * * He shall preserve thee from 
all evil ; He shall preserve thy soul. ' ' We make none 
too much of the sustaining and directing presence of 
the Lord as He journeys with us through the day, 
but the tendency is to emphasize this to the exclu- 
sion of His protecting watchcare over us while we 
slumber. If in our wakeful hours we but partially 
comprehend His beneficent acts in our behalf, how 
can we grasp the extent of His illimitable guardian- 
ship of the sleeping child. 

In a broader use of the word, sleep is a state of 
unconsciousness. One cannot at all hours of the day 
have the Word of God uppermost in his thoughts. 
The mind is necessarily occupied much of the time 
with pressing duties. Unseen dangers and unsus- 
pected temptations may arise, but the one who has 
graced his life by "continually" wearing this Dia- 
mond Necklace will at all times be kept. The secre- 
tary of the organization of Christian traveling men, 
known as Gideons, who have placed thousands of 
Bibles in hotels, received a letter from a young worn- 



68 GREAT THINGS OF THE BIBLE 

an stating that the Bible which she found in her 
room resulted in saving her from a life of shame. 
She tells of her struggles in the endeavor to elude 
her tempters, and of picking up the Bible in a down- 
town Chicago hotel. She opened it at the seventieth 
Psalm and as she read her courage was renewed 
and strength was given her to resist the temptation. 

Many mothers are giving their sons khaki Testa- 
ments in these days when the brave lads are going 
forth to defend the colors. Many of these boys in 
reality are, both in training camp and in the trench, 
"binding them continually upon their hearts and 
tying them about their necks" and we may be as- 
sured that so long as they comply with these condi- 
tions the promised Guardian will graciously keep 
watch over them. In this world crisis which neces- 
sitates the giving of our boys to the uncertainties 
of war this same Guardian who keeps watch over 
them stands ready to give a like comforting Pres- 
ence to those back home. 

"When thou awakest, it shall talk with thee." 
In addition to being a guide and guardian, the Bible 
is a boon companion. The promise is not that it shall 
preach to thee, nor lecture to thee, but "talk"; a 
very familiar companion is this Book. Neither does 
it read, "It shall talk to thee", nor "talk at thee," 
but "It shall talk with thee." The conversation is 
to be mutual and responsive rather than one-sided 
and unreciprocal. You have had friends who talked 
to you and others who talked at you, and in your 



THE DIAMOND NECKLACE 69 

absence snch friends often talk about you in no 
complimentary manner. This candid Companion will 
talk with those who have it bound continually upon 
their hearts and tied about their necks. The Bible 
is very much like most of its readers, in that what 
you get out of it depends largely upon the spirit of 
approach. It is not abnormally sensitive, and is 
neither offended when its reader makes a breech in 
rhetorical etiquette, nor when he comes with brown- 
ed hands and toil-worn garments, but it never opens 
its treasure to the cold heart of a critic or to the 
whimsical wish of a curio hunter. It only insists 
that the one to whom it is to open its heart 
and speak of the deep things of God shall approach 
it in a spirit at one with its own. "The secrets of 
the Lord are with them that fear Him." This con- 
versant Companion has a message for the sad and 
weary, for the glad and strong; a message for the 
faithful believer, the honest doubter, and the sincere 
seeker for the priceless peace. 

A man who was openly opposed to Christianity 
was incensed when he saw on the center table a 
Bible which his devout wife had secured from a 
colporteur. He rebuked her for this personal, extrav- 
agant and useless investment. She explained that it 
had been secured at a very nominal cost and assured 
him that it was for the home, being as much his as 
her own. "In that case," said he, "it is one-half 
mine." "Certainly so," the good wife replied. The 
enraged man stepped out at the rear door with the 



70 GREAT THINGS OF THE BIBLE 

Book in his hand and seizing an ax, laid the Bible 
on a block and cut it in two. He returned and flung 
one of the portions at his wife saying, "There is 
your half and I have mine ' \ He again left the house 
and threw his half of the Book in the attic of the 
workshop at the rear of the lot, thinking he had won 
a decisive victory. The good wife made constant 
use of her portion of the Necklace, binding it upon 
her heart and tying it about her neck. After some 
months there came a period of excessive and con- 
tinuous rain. The discouraged man was one rainy 
day looking for something in the attic of his shop 
and came upon his half of the severed Necklace. 
He opened the dusty half leaves and found a story 
that interested him immensely. The story was cut 
off at the most interesting point and presently he 
mustered up courage to ask his wife for her half of 
the Book that he might finish the story. "When 
thou awakest, it shall talk with thee." He finished 
the story and continued to read. Finally he said, 
1 "Wife, if this Book is true, I'm a sinner. ? ' She feared 
to make any reply. After reading further he said 
with sincerity and evident emotion, "Wife, if this 
Book is true, I can be saved. ' ' To this she assuringly 
replied, "I have proven it to be true." The con- 
victed man yielded his heart to the Lord with saving 
faith and the two rejoiced together. Oh, that we 
may all continually wear this Diamond Necklace 
that others, catching its luster, may be won to the 
Lord. 



TWO PICTURES IN ONE FRAME 

"He maketh me to lie down in green pastures. 
* * * Thou preparest a table before me." 

— Psalm xxiii: 2-5. 

The study of art reveals the development of the 
race in the successful cycles of the past. The cata- 
combs of an antiquated civilization are rich with 
pictures of oriental life. The masterpieces of the 
world's greatest painters have been collected in the 
art museums of every land and are guarded with 
jealous care as the richest legacy for succeeding 
generations. Vast fortunes have been invested in 
some of these collections of art. Some of us have 
studied for hours paintings of such celebrities as 
Raphael, Rembrandt and Leonardo, until their living 
ideas became a part of our lives. No home is so poor 
but that it has at least some one picture upon the 
walls telling daily its vivid story to the members 
of the household. Among our fondest recollections 
of childhood is a life-like picture in an old walnut 
frame looking down from the wall upon us. The 
oldest, highest prized and truest pictures in the world 
are the word paintings in the art gallery of the Bible. 
As a map on the walls in a public place shows wear 
and pencil marks about the home town, so tear stains 
and finger prints increase about the pictures of the 
Bible in proportion as they touch our lives. 

71 



72 GREAT THINGS OF THE BIBLE 

We have before us this morning a small frame 
containing two pictures from the hand of a Master 
Artist; so harmoniously are they blended that it is 
all but impossible to tell where the one finishes and 
the other begins. The stone step at the door of the 
postoffice which for a half century has borne the 
tread of a million feet does not show usage in com- 
parison with these pictures which have received the 
tears and kisses of the unnumbered millions who for 
three thousand years have worshiped at the shrine 
they grace. May the light of heaven be focused upon 
them as we once more study their lines and shades, 
rich with suggestive and inexhaustible meaning. 

I. In Green Pastures. 

The first picture is a pastoral scene in the fore- 
ground of which we see the Shepherd and his sheep. 
This has been called "The Shepherd Psalm"; it is 
equally profitable to think of it as being ' * The Sheep 
Psalm." It is not surprising that David the shep- 
herd opens with the words, "The Lord is my Shep- 
herd. ' ' The divine title occurs about seven thousand 
times in the Bible. About one thousand times it is 
translated "God" and the remaining six thousand 
times it is rendered "Lord". Does not David run 
the risk of offending God by likening Him to a shep- 
herd, for no such title had ever been given Him, yet 
David offers no apology for ascribing Him this hum- 
ble occupation. God's acceptance of this title was 
expressed in no uncertain terms four hundred years 



TWO PICTURES IN ONE FRAME 73 

later, in the thirty-fourth chapter of Ezekiel 's proph- 
ecy, which concludes "The flock of my pasture are 
men." Isaiah adopts David's title when he strikes 
the key of his Messianic prophecy and proclaims, 
"He shall feed His flock like a shepherd; He shall 
gather the lambs with His arms, and carry them in 
His bosom, and shall gently lead those that are with 
young." Jesus was pleased to accept David's title 
by saying, ' ' I am the good Shepherd ; the good Shep- 
herd giveth His life for the sheep." David does 
not say, "The Lord is a shepherd"; nor, "the shep- 
herd"; neither does he say, "our shepherd". Many 
go that far and say as much but that is not enough. 
David makes it decidedly personal by saying, "My 
Shepherd ' '. We do not make enough of the ' ' My 's ' ' 
of the Bible. "My" is the appropriating word. It 
is only those who say, "The Lord is my Shepherd" 
who can follow David in the next declaration. 

"I shall not want." This is the only negative in- 
ference in the entire Psalm; all the following are 
positive declarations. The experience of every Chris- 
tian should be like that of the little boy who said, 
"The Lord is my Shepherd and I don't want any- 
thing." Why should I want when I have a promise 
of Him who feeds the ravens and notes the sparrow 
when it falls, which reads : "No good thing will He 
withhold from them that walk uprightly." I shall 
not want rest, for He maketh me lie down in green 
pastures. I shall not want refreshment, for He 
leadeth me beside the still waters. I shall not want 



74 GREAT THINGS OF THE BIBLE 

guidance, for He leadeth me in the paths of right- 
eousness. I shall not want companionship, for He 
accompanies me through the valley of death. I shall 
not want sustenance, for He prepares a table before 
me. I shall not want joy, for He anoints my head 
with oil and fills my cup to overflowing. How can I 
want, for His goodness and mercy follow me and the 
silver and the gold are His, the cattle on a thousand 
hills, and the earth and the fulness thereof? 

"He maketh me to lie down." A knowledge of 
the needs and habits of sheep serves one well in 
studying this picture. City people know more about 
mutton than they do about sheep. David was no 
butcher; the scene is in a pasture rather than in a 
meat market. Sheep do not lie down until they have 
been fed. Until their hunger has been satisfied they 
go grazing about for food. Sheep do not stop eating 
long enough to bleat when they are feeding. It is 
a familiar sound in the springtime to hear the mother 
sheep calling their lambs without stopping to lose 
a bite. When sheep have satisfied their hunger they 
lie down to further masticate their food. That is 
the figure before us. The first duty of a shepherd is 
to provide for his flock. David is careful to mention 
four distinct things that God does for His sheep. 
Not only does He satisfy their hunger but He leads 
them beside still waters, He gives restoration and 
leads them in righteous paths. Some church mem- 
bers talk five minutes and fail to name a single per- 



TWO PICTURES IN ONE FRAME 75 

sonal blessing received of the Lord, but David men- 
tions four in less than thirty seconds. 

' ' In green pastures. ' ' Nothing is more barren than 
a closely cropped sheep pasture. "Where sheep feed 
scantily other stock starve. God does not overstock 
His "commons". There may be hungry sheep be- 
longing to His flock but they are not in His pasture. 
They have jumped through the bars and are feeding 
in the world with the devil's goats. Man has no 
more right to choose his own pasture than sheep have 
to choose theirs. The food of the Lord's flock is 
"the sincere milk of the Word", "the finest of the 
wheat". Countless numbers have fed in these per- 
ennial pastures since the days of David, but they 
ever continue a satisfying portion and the flock is 
made to lie down in contentment. 

"He leadeth me." The life of the sheep, like that 
of the Christian is filled with activity and David 
did not fail to get that in this picture. "Oh," says 
one, ' ' you must be mistaken about this Psalm teach- 
ing Christian activity for it is written, 'He maketh 
me to lie down in green pastures'." All very true, 
and I fear that is just about as far as some professed 
Christians have ever gone. After one square meal 
they have lain down and that is the last we hear of 
them. Yes, David was made to lie down in green 
pastures, but the Lord did not leave him there long 
for in the very next sentence we read, "He leadeth 
me beside the still waters, ' ' and a little later he was 
being led in paths of righteousness. The need of the 



76 GREAT THINGS OF THE BIBLE 

church to-day is consecrated enthusiasm and zealous 
activity, remembering that "As many as are led by 
the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God." 

"Beside the still waters.' ' After being fed a sheep 
wants water though it is not a water animal. Hence 
the Good Shepherd selects still waters for His flock 
rather than the turbulent stream. Not the stagnant, 
offensive pool but quiet, fresh water. Sheep are not 
like the unsightly elephant which refused to drink 
when he saw his repulsive face mirrored in the clear 
water before him. He lashed the water with his trunk 
until it was churned into foam and so roiled by the 
sediments as to hide his appearance and then he drank. 
It is pathetic to see those who profess to be of the 
Lord's fold sipping at the polluted pools of society 
when they might be drinking at the Fountain of Life 
which sends forth its refreshing flow as clear as 
crystal. 

"He restoreth my soul." Travelers tell us that 
shepherds of the Orient are much occupied in seeking 
after straying sheep and healing those which have 
been at the mercy of ravenous beasts. The Lord said 
of His flock, in the thirty-fourth of EzeMal, "My 
sheep wandered through all the mountains, and upon 
every high hill ; yea, My flock was scattered upon all 
the face of the earth. ' ' Sheep have a very inaccurate 
sense of direction. A homing pigeon may return from 
any land under the sun and a dog from the farthest 
corner of the state, but a sheep at the rear side of a 
woods pasture often fails to find its fold. Therefore, 



TWO PICTURES IN ONE FRAME 77 

God says, ' • I will seek that which was lost, and bring 
back that which was driven away, and will bind up 
that which was broken, and will strengthen that which 
was sick. " No little part of the mission of the Church 
is the seeking of straying sheep. The shepherd must 
of necessity be courageous, ever ready to ward off 
the lurking foe. No one knew this better than David, 
who once killed a lion and a bear which sought to 
ravage his flock ; and Jesus Himself said : ' ' The Good 
Shepherd giveth His life for His sheep. ' ' 

"But none of the ransomed ever knew 
How deep were the waters crossed; 
Nor how dark was the night that the Lord passed 
through 
Ere He found His sheep that was lost. ' ' 

"In paths of righteousness for His Name's sake." 
David does not say, ' ' In the path ' ' but ' ' In the paths. ' ' 
As there are many spokes in a wheel so there are many 
paths of Christian activity. Some emphasize a single 
virtue until they make it their hobby. With them the 
sum total of the Christian life may be attendance at 
the prayer service, or interest in missions, or any one 
of a score of commendable endeavors to the exclusion 
of all others. Let us forever cease thinking that the 
work we do is the only service worthy of favorable 
mention. We are led beside still waters for personal 
refreshing but in paths of righteousness for definite 
service, — not for our deserving but "For His name 
sake, ' ' for the manifestation of His glory and the fur- 
therance of His will concerning us. 

You may have seen a shepherd leading his flock 



78 GREAT THINGS OF THE BIBLE 

down the heated roadway in midsummer toward a 
green pasture. The sheep, suffering from the heat and 
dust, seek shade from the fence by the roadside. They 
sip at the dirty water in the open ditches and nip at 
the weeds and dry grass in the fence corners until the 
shepherd's voice can but faintly be heard as he leads 
on to better things. Presently his trained dogs are 
at the heels of the lagging sheep, frightening them on 
to the shepherd, and soon they enter the green pasture 
where there is abundance of shade and fresh water. 
So our Good Shepherd is leading His flock along the 
dusty pathway of life. Some of the sheep vainly seek 
comfort in the scanty shade of temporal things, en- 
deavoring to satisfy their hunger by feeding upon 
the things of the world, while the Lord is desirous 
of leading them on to where they may have abundant 
pasture. It is fortunate that we are followed by the 
trained dogs of a divinely directed Providence which 
are at our heels when we lag too far in the rear. Some- 
times they come in the form of sorrow, giving us pain 
and fear, and we regard them as some misfortune, 
when in reality they are but the dogs of a loving 
Shepherd doing their Master's will in bringing the 
sheep closer to Him and on to richer things. What a 
Shepherd is given us in this pastoral picture, feeding 
and leading His flock and seeking and succoring those 
who have gone astray— all for "His name's sake." 



TWO PICTURES IN ONE FRAME 79 

II. In Banquet HIall. 

The second picture in this familiar frame is a royal 
scene in the foreground of which we see the Sovereign 
and His subject. David was not only a shepherd but 
he was a king as well. The two pictures in this frame 
contain the essence of his life. So harmonized are they 
in thought and color that many see only the first, 
which is perhaps the dominant picture. Those who 
recognize the dual figure here are not agreed as to 
where the change falls. The honored expositor, Alex- 
ander MacClaren, places the division between the 
fourth and fifth verses, but I prefer to think the trans- 
ition is between the third and fourth verses. So 
unified are these pictures that several verses may aptly 
be applied to both, but the distinguishing verses are 
the second and fifth. In the one we see a sheep in 
green pastures while in the other we see a subject 
seated at a royal banquet. 

"Though I walk through the valley." Is it not 
significant that he does not quicken his pace when he 
enters the shadows of the valley? Those of us who 
were children of the farm and went after sunset to 
bring the cows from the timbered valley found our- 
selves running like pursued fawns. The slightest noise 
suggested the presence of a panther or an equally 
dangerous beast ready to tear us asunder. But when 
father or a big brother went with us for the cows we 
could "walk" through the valley. That accounts for 
David's lack of haste, God was with him. Mark you. 



80 GREAT THINGS OF THE BIBLE 

he is not talking about "a" valley, but "the" valley. 
We come upon many valleys before we reach "the" 
valley. How we dread the valley of death. There is 
another helpful word here. David does not say, 
"Though I walk into the valley," but "through the 
valley. ' ' I fear we think only of going into the valley 
of death. We are not only to go into but through this 
valley. And it is not so far to the other side as we 
too often think. Certainly the valley of death will be 
a horror to you if you think only of walking into it. 
The Christian having God as his Sovereign is to walk 
through this valley with One at his side who robbed 
death of its sting and the grave of its victory. Why 
wonder that the Psalmist does not flee with fear? 

"The shadow of death." Death to David was not 
more than a shadow. What is there about a shadow 
that should give one fear? No man was ever bitten 
by the shadow of a dog and no man ever died from 
the shadow of a sword. A shadow is only the counter- 
part of light. Rather than something to be feared it 
should be to us a source of assurance of light beyond. 
Death stands athwart the highway in which we travel. 
The Lord illuminates from Heaven the pathway of His 
children. When we approach the shadow of death 
it is but evidence that we are making progress on the 
journey of life. In Bunyan's dream the valley of the 
shadow of death lies about midway in the journey of 
his "Faithful Christian." When the pilgrim sets 
out it is far in the distance before him but if he is a 
true Christian this darkness falls behind him long 



TWO PICTURES IN ONE FRAME 81 

before the end of the journey is reached. When we 
walk close to God the darkness which we have always 
associated with death will become brighter for "The 
path of the just is as the shining light that shineth 
more and more unto the perfect day. ' ' 

"I will fear no evil for Thou art with me." The 
fear of evil is common to man but the presence of God 
removes that fear. A mother who takes a day's jour- 
ney on the train with a four-year-old daughter finds 
that for some hours' the child plays near by, but 
in the afternoon of the long day may venture to 
the farthest end of the car. She forms acquaintance 
there with another little girl with whom she has been 
exchanging glances for some time. The mother of the 
second child may ask of the little adventurer, ' ' Whose 
daughter are you?" To such an inquiry comes the 
reply, ' ' See, that's my mamma, way down there. She's 
the goodest mamma ; she made this nice new dwess f er 
me, she did. See, that's my mamma what has that 
nice wose on her hat, way down there, that's my 
mamma." Just then the train plunges into a tunnel 
and the child turns quickly and feels her way along 
the aisle in the darkness until she reaches her mother's 
side. When reassured of her identity by receiving 
the affirmative reply, ' ' Is this you, mamma ? ' ' she says, 
"I ain't a bit afraid, air you, mamma?" As long as 
the sun was streaming through the car window she 
could stand off at a distance and speak of her mother 
but when darkness gathered about her she hurried to 
her mother's side and talked to her. As darkness 



82 GREAT THINGS OF THE BIBLE 

brings a child to its parent so sorrow brings us to God. 
That is exactly what David put into these pictures. 
In the former picture, while he was in green pastures, 
he used always the third person in speaking of his 
Shepherd; but in this picture, when the shadows of 
death gather about him, he uses the second person and 
speaks to his Sovereign. Many speak most highly of 
God but not having been recently in the shadows, 
speak entirely too little to Him. He permits His sub- 
jects to enter no dark A^alley alone. Whether it be an 
Egyptian dungeon or a Phillipian prison; a fiery 
furnace or a den of lions; a martyr's stake or a can- 
nibals ' slaughter, He verifies His promise : ' ' Lo, I am 
with you alway, even unto the end of the world." 

"Thy rod and Thy staff they comfort me. Thou 
preparest a table before me." The journey leads not 
only through the shadowed valley but also up a rugged 
hillside where passage is only possible to those who 
climb by the aid of the "Rod and Staff" of His Word. 
Just over the summit of this hill we come upon a 
festal table, the preparation of which has been com- 
mitted to no servant but one which the Lord Himself 
has made ready. God offers no cold lunch to the sloth- 
ful but spreads a feast to those who will come into 
His banqueting house. The father in Luke fifteen 
wooed the straying son at the swine trough but the 
feast was prepared at home. God loves the impenitent 
sinner but only those who seek His mercy are privi- 
leged to feast upon the "Bread from Heaven" and 
hunger nevermore. 



TWO PICTURES IN ONE FRAME 83 

"Thou anointest my head with oil. My cup run- 
neth over. ' ' In the Orient the host frequently anoints 
his guest with a fragrant perfume and gives him a 
cup of choice wine, which he is careful to fill until it 
runs over. The first is designed to show his love and 
respect and the latter to assure the visitor that while 
he remains there he will have abundance of every- 
thing. This figure of an overflowing cup does not 
imply that an attendant has been careless in serving 
but is rather an earnest of God's bountiful supply. If 
overflowing cups are seldom seen in these modern 
times, it is no evidence of God's stinting; the reason 
is to be found within ourselves. No amount of water 
will fill a pail without a bottom and the old oaken 
bucket left empty in the sun and wind will leak at 
the joint of every stave; so our hearts are often ren- 
dered unreceptive by the parching elements of world- 
liness. Even though a vessel be without defect, if left 
in the open yard during the shower, it receives little 
water, but if placed under the eaves of the building 
it will be filled to overflowing. Stagnant water may be 
found in a half filled vessel but the over running cup 
gives a refreshing and invigorating flow. The only 
blessing we impart to others comes from the overflow- 
ing of our own hearts. May the Lord help us to 
keep our hearts receptive and place them under the 
eaves of the Sanctuary that they may be filled as He 
sends the showers of blessing upon us. 

" Goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days 
of my life. ' ' Goodness to supply every need, but not 



84 GREAT THINGS OF THE BIBLE 

goodness alone for we are sinners and need forgive- 
ness ; Mercy to forgive every sin bnt not mercy alone 
for we need much in addition to foregiveness. God 
has graciously provided these two white- winged at- 
tendants to minister unto every child of the covenant. 
What consoling assurance that they shall follow us 
"all the days" of our lives. Dark days as well as 
bright ones ; days of distress as well as days of delight. 
Always and everywhere the journeying child may hear 
the music of their comings and receive their celestial 
benefactions. 

"I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever." 
These words flood this masterpiece with a light that 
shall never lose its effulgence. What a fitting climax 
to the two pictures in this frame. In what studio 
were they painted? Come and see. The artist has 
green grass beneath him, the quiet waters of assurance 
at his left, and God standing at his right, a sumptuous 
table before him, goodness and mercy behind him, the 
house of God above him and the hope of heaven with- 
in. Why marvel that David put so much into these 
pictures ? Why marvel that a four year old lad drives 
a fractious team when you learn he sits between his 
father's knees, whose strong hands are ready to grasp 
the reins at any instant? It appears that the boy 
is driving. So with these pictures, David held the 
brush but the unseen hand of God directed its stroke. 

This frame hangs between two others by the same 
Artist. To fully appreciate its pictures they must 
be studied in the light of the other two. The twenty- 



TWO PICTURES IN ONE FRAME 85 

second Psalm contains a picture of the past or unre- 
generated life, the twenty-fourth Psalm that of the 
future or glorified life, while the two-fold picture of 
the twenty-third Psalm is of the present or regen- 
erated life. It is to the other two what meat is to 
the sandwich. Man has marched across the plains of 
three thousand years since this Psalm was written. 
The sling with which David hurled the stone with such 
cunningness, the harp upon which he played with such 
deftness, the palace in which he lived and the throne 
from which he reigned have all gone like decaying tim- 
bers, but this Psalm which he wrote is as inspiring as 
it was^ the day it came from his pen. These words 
have charmed more grief to rest than all the philos- 
ophy of the world. They have poured more balm and 
consolation into the heart of the sick than the world's 
best Samaritans. Pilgrims on their weary journey, 
sailors amid storms at sea and Christian martyrs have 
all found comfort in these precious words. Jesus must 
have lisped them as He knelt at His mother's side, 
just as untold millions have committed them to heart 
in youth. Old men and women, young men and maid- 
ens, rich men and beggars, kings and slaves, have pil- 
lowed their heads upon these omnipotent, unchange- 
able words and have swept into glory to meet their 
Divine Shepherd and Sovereign Lord. May the Lord 
help us to hang these inspiring pictures on the walls 
of memory that they may radiate a benediction to 
those about us until we depart to dwell with the 
Master Artist forevermore. 



VI 

ESSENCE OF THE GOSPEL 

"God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten 
Son, that whosoever oelieveth in Him shovM not perish, but 
have everlasting life." — John 3:16. 

The entire shelving of the average private library 
would prove inadequate to contain the volumes that 
have been written to unfold the truth in this single 
verse of Scripture, the keynote of which is love. We 
find in this "Golden text of the Bible' ' the following 
suggestive acrostic: 

6?od so loved the world that He gave His 

Only begotten 

Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not 

Perish, but have 

Everlasting 

Life. 
What is this verse but the Essence of the Gospel? 
It embraces the thought of God; it sounds the depth 
of His love ; it proclaims the gift of His Son ; it con- 
siders man, the highest form of creation; it declares 
the fact of his lost condition and announces the pro- 
vision by which whosoever will, may have everlasting 
life. With one stroke of the inspired pen we have 
flashed before us the thought of God and His mercy, 
Christ and His mission, man and his destiny, time and 
eternity. Love has a thousand ways by which she 



ESSENCE OF THE GOSPEL 87 

approaches like a slippered page the holy chamber 
of the human heart, a few of which we shall consider. 

I. Love's Present. 

Love will always be found on the giving hand. All 
love prompts giving, but not all giving is prompted 
by love. We may give and not love, but we can no 
more love and not give than the sun can cease shin- 
ing. When love gives, the best at command is none 
too good. It will be helpful in studying the love of 
God to have in mind the love of a mother for her 
child, for there is nothing in the world that so nearly 
approaches the love of God as the love of a true 
mother. In Isaiah's day we hear God asking, "Can 
a mother forget her child? yea; she may forget, yet 
I will not forget thee. ' ' What will a mother not give 
for the child she loves? She will lay down her life 
for that child. Love keeps nothing back, it presents 
all but never becomes insolvent. It exercises great 
solicitude and commands us to avoid the very appear- 
ance of evil." It has keen forethought and believes 
that "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of 
cure. " It is never so poor but that it finds something 
to give and presents that gift with such a spirit as to 
add a value which exceeds its intrinsic worth. 

In the Old Testament God proclaims, ' ' I have loved 
thee with an everlasting love, ' ' and in the New Testa- 
ment John affirms, ' ' God is love, ' ' but if in these and 
the hundreds of other passages in the Bible in which 
His love for man is declared we could not find it ex- 



88 GREAT THINGS OF THE BIBLE 

pressed or implied that His love prompted Him to 
give, there might be some excuse for the slowness with 
which some accept Jehovah as the God of love. I am 
glad that in the text we read, ' ' God so loved the world 
that He gave." Here we see Love's Present. Not 
even a prince like Enoch, a patriarch like Abraham, 
a governor like Joseph, a lawgiver like Moses, a war- 
rior like Gideon, a judge like Samuel, a king like 
David, a prophet like Elijah, an interpreter like 
Daniel, not any one of the martyred hosts, nor the 
highest archangel in Heaven was worthy to come as 
a manifestation of God's love to man. He "so loved" 
that "He gave" the richest gift of Heaven. He went 
to His own bosom and brought forth His only be- 
gotten Son. Not only did He bestow this priceless 
Present, but He also freely grants the gift of eternal 
life to those who will accept His beneficence. "No 
good thing will He withhold from them that walk up- 
rightly." He is more willing to give than we are to 
receive. 

II. Love's Prepabation. 

Love has busy hands and delights itself in prepar- 
ing for the happiness and well-being of its object. 
With what delight and untiring labor does a mother 
make preparation for the happiness of her children. 
Look in upon a family when the mantle of darkness 
brings them about the common hearth at the close of 
a day too short for the performing of its many duties. 
The father, having been exposed to the chill of the day 



ESSENCE OF THE GOSPEL 89 

enjoys the warm corner with the evening paper, the 
little children play about the room while the larger 
ones prepare their lessons for school. Mother is en- 
gaged with a piece of work, for the love of her heart 
always suggests something she can do to add to the 
comfort and happiness of her children. Other mem- 
bers of the family may retire but mother 's work is not 
done until the clothing of every child is mended for 
to-morrow's wear; and when those garments are re- 
placed by new ones, with the skill of womankind and 
the industry of mother-love, she clips away the frag- 
mentary parts of those little dresses that may yet be 
serviceable and brings them together with an artistic 
design that leads us to say when we look upon the 
finished product in the form of a crazy-quilt, "This 
is the product of love. ' ' 

We see this mother call her eight year old daughter 
to her side and say, ' ' Winifred, mother has made this 
quilt for you. I will put it away and keep it for you 
until you grow to be a woman. Here, daughter, is a 
little piece from one of Minnie's dresses, and this is 
from the dress that Auntie gave you. Here is a piece 
of Charlie's little waist, and here, a small piece from 
the last dress little sister wore before she went to live 
with Jesus." Come with me twenty years later and 
see this daughter, now herself a mother. Every morn- 
ing as she dresses the bed her eyes fall upon that work 
of mother-love. For eight years the industrious hands 
which made that quilt have been folded and the voice 
of loving counsel silenced. She can now appreciate 



90 GREAT THINGS OF THE BIBLE 

the love of a mother's heart. Every stitch in that 
quilt is an argument of love; every piece proclaims 
a message of mother-love more powerful than sermon 
cr song. 

So, my brother, in a thousand ways God's love ex- 
presses itself in the preparation made for us. In His 
love for man He prepared the world and so endowed 
it as to make it most conducive to our good. Jesus 
said, ''I go to prepare a place for you, and if I go 
and prepare a place for you, I will come again and 
receive you unto myself, that where I am, there ye 
may be also. ' ' Even ' ' the heavens declare the glory of 
God and the firmament showeth His handiwork." 
Turn where you will and your eyes fall upon Nature 's 
living message, "God is love." 

III. Love's Persistence. 

The word "surrender" is not found in the vocabu- 
lary of love. Enthusiasm dies of age, zeal stumbles 
with weariness and fatigue, reason loses hope, mercy 
despairs and faith falters but "Love suffereth long, * 
* beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all 
things, endureth all things ; love never f aileth. ' ' Talk 
to the mother of a wayward son who knows the truth- 
fulness of the proverb, "How sharper than a serpent's 
tooth it is to have a thankless child. ' ' Everybody has 
given him up as a hopeless wreck, — no, not everybody. 
She cannot give him up. Love does not know how to 
quit. She still pleads with him, and each night pours 
out her soul in prayer for him and in her dreams she 



ESSENCE OF THE GOSPEL 91 

sees that son transformed into a godly man. She sees 
in him the dutiful son, the honored citizen, the de- 
voted husband, the loving father, all through the ef- 
forts of persistent love. ' ' Love never f aileth. ' ' Love 
has no end. 

The fact that God has not given up the human race ^/ 
is an evidence that He is a God of love. His declara- 
tion is "I have loved thee with an everlasting love." 
Man failed in Eden, but love did not give up. He was 
reproved for his sin and given the promise of a De- 
liverer. Man failed under the judges, but love did 
not give up. Prophets were sent and man stoned 
them, but love did not give up. The Son of God came, 
the very embodiment of love, and man spat in His 
face, placed a crown of thorns upon Hjis brow, and 
crucified Him. Still love did not give up. In the hour 
of death He prayed, "Father, forgive them": and 
that same love intercedes for you today. O, my 
brother, it is love, divine, heaven-born love , that 
knocks at your heart's door for admission. It is not 
Justice or she would beat down the door and seize you 
as her prisoner. It is not Reason, for the oil in her 
lamp would long since have failed. It is not Mercy 
alone, for she becomes weary after much delay and 
may withdraw forever. But it is Love. LOVE ! All 
these years she has been knocking and is knocking 
now. I pray you, arise and let her in : make Heaven *s 
greatest gift your guest. 



92 GREAT THINGS OF THE BIBLE 

IV Love's Perception. 

Love has keen eyes and can see afar off. This may- 
conflict with the time honored proverb that "love is 
blind, ' ' but love has the eyes of an eagle. Yon wonder 
what the mother of an untidy, ungainly, unpromising 
youth sees in him of worth. You have charged that 
she is blind to his short-comings, when the fact is, 
no one sees more clearly than she his wrong-doing. She 
pleads with him to turn from his error and moistens 
her pillow with salt tears as she implores God to help 
him reform. The keen vision of her love sees manli- 
ness beneath the surface of his faults, while for want 
of love your eyes are blinded to the qualities of merit 
which lie dormant in his heart ready to respond to 
love's touch. We ask with one of old, "Lord, what 
is man that thou shouldest magnify him and that thou 
shouldest set thine heart upon him?" Marvel of 
marvels, that God should see in man that upon which 
to bestow His love in the gift of Jesus Christ His Son. 
God can look into the heart of every man who is a 
fugitive from justice and into the life of the wander- 
ing prodigal and into the souls of the poor wretches 
who revel in the most loathsome sins, and in every 
life, He, through the vision of His love, sees a winsome 
soul transformed by His grace. There is some good in 
every life and love is able to see that good though it 
be hidden beneath a multitude of repulsive traits. 

The four manifestations of love just mentioned are 
to be seen in the parable of the Prodigal Son. There 



ESSENCE OF THE GOSPEL 93 

is not a single word in the entire story but what as- 
sures us that the father loved the younger son with 
all his heart. Notice first Love 's Present. ' ' He divid- 
ed unto them his living. ,, There was no stinting in 
that father's gift of love. Second, Love's Prepara- 
tion. The son had scarcely gone from sight before the 
father commanded the servants to place a calf in the 
stall and have everything in readiness for a feast upon 
the son's return. Shoes were provided, a robe was at 
hand waiting his coming. There was not a moment 
from the time the son left home that he could have 
come and caught love unprepared to receive him. The 
invitation of our Heavenly Father is, "Come for all 
things are now ready. ' ' Third, Love 's Persistence. The 
son did not come home at the end of a week, for aught 
we know he did not come at the end of a year, but 
love was ready, waiting his return. No doubt the serv- 
ants asked, ' ' Why not kill the calf and have the feast, 
for he's not coming back?" But the father replied, 
"Feed on boys." We cannot know how many calves 
succeeded one another in the stall, but this we do 
know, Love did not give up. It grew stronger with 
the delay of time and the calf was there when the son 
came. Fourth, Love's Perception. If love were blind 
the story would run something as follows: The re- 
turning son finds the father sitting in deep meditation 
before the open hearth in the old home, and weeps 
upon his shoulders as he makes his confession, while 
the bewildered father is unable to recognize his son. 
But it reads very different, for love is not blind. 



/ 



94 GREAT THINGS OF THE BIBLE 

1 ' When he was yet a great way off, his father smv him, 
and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck and 
kissed him. ' ' As the love of that father saw the pen- 
itent son afar off so the love of God pierces the deepest 
recesses of every heart. It sees the first impulse that 
says, "I will arise and go home," and runs to greet 
the home bound soul with forgiveness. 

V. Love's Prohibition. 

For those who dislike the word prohibition perhaps 
I should say love's limitation, or love's standard, or 
love 's requirement. When a neighbor woman is given 
charge of the home in the absence of the father and 
mother and she permits the children to play with 
matches, revolvers, razors and other articles placed 
under parental prohibition, does it prove that she has 
a greater love for the children than the parents have ? 
The disbeliever in love 's prohibition is yet in the nurs- 
ery. I recall an experience while but a boy, when 
mother placed on brother and me new waists, which 
she had finished making and, kissing us as only a 
mother can, told how much she loved her boys. An 
hour later we came in to ask permission to spend the 
day with schoolmates whose home was a mile away. To 
our surprise came the positive prohibition : ' ' No boys, 
I cannot let you go today." Our further appeal was, 
"Why can't we go, mother? We've nothing to do, 
they're good boys and we'll not spoil our new waists". 
"Run away now like good little boys and don't bother 
mother. I worked so late last night to finish your 



ESSENCE OF THE GOSPEL 95 

waists and have a headache and there is so much to do. 
I cannot let you go to-day ' ', was love 's calm but firm 
reply though no reason was assigned. From past ex- 
perience we knew that further argument would not 
change the decision of this court of highest appeals. 
We went out pouting, boy like, and in our reasoning 
concluded that mother did not love us. But the phil- 
osophy of youth does not change the law of love. 
"Thou shalt not" is love's declaration. 

Where there is no standard, no denial, there is little 
or no love. Love prescribes a limitation, encircles its 
object, and prohibits trespassing beyond those bounds. 
This is true of love between man and man and between 
God and man. It was the voice of love which said, 
"Thou shalt have no other gods before me. Thou 
shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain. • ' 
Thou shalt not steal." The enemy said to the two in 
Eden: "Thou mayest eat of the tree of life," but 
God had, in love, previously said, "Thou shalt not." 
It is an evidence to me that ' ' God is Love ' ' when I see 
that love asserting itself by prohibiting man from en- 
gaging in that which to him may seem right, but which 
Omnipotent Love knows to be destructive to his high- 
est good. Parents may err in denying their children 
but God makes no mistakes. I pray you, never pass 
the archway over which God has hung His love 
banner, "Thou shalt not." 



96 GREAT THINGS OF THE BIBLE 

VI Love's Pardon. 

Forgiveness is love in full bloom. "If we confess 
our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our 
sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. ' ' Love 
stands every ready to pardon the penitent offender. 
Mother said, "I cannot let you go." But we went. 
You see, it was like this : Father had expressed a desire 
to know how the wheat at the rear of the farm had 
stood the winter. There could be no harm in inspect- 
ing the wheat and informing father of its condition. 
And no agricultural experiment station was ever more 
expert on wheat conditions than were we two boys. So 
we were soon in the field and finding the wheat unu- 
sually good were ready to return with a report as glow- 
ing as the one given by the spies, when two boys, our 
school friends, mounted on the old rail fence called, 
1 1 Come over. ' ' We responded, ' ' We can't come over. ' ' 
1 1 Why can 't you come over ? ' ' they asked. ' ' 'Cause our 
mother won't let us come over." "Why won't she let 
you come over ? ' ' That we were unable to answer, but 
some explanation must be made. We were just at that 
age when our voices were undergoing a change and a 
strong spring wind was against us. To attempt to 
converse under these difficulties at so great a distance 
was liable to permanently affect the voice. We took no 
chances and in making the explanation joined the boys 
on the fence. 

The subject soon changed, they commented favorably 
on our new waists and suggested a game. We acted 



ESSENCE OF THE GOSPEL 97 

on the suggestion and time took wings. Noon came 
and we accepted an invitation to dinner after which we 
went back to play off the tie game. I was going to say 
we went home about the middle of the afternoon, but 
we did not ; we were taken home. Our big brother and 
the hired man came after us in the old spring wagon. 
As we were being hustled for home in that country 
patrol, we were convinced that the fun of the day 
was ended. But to our surprise, when we got home 
love pardoned. Yes, it did something else first, but 
bless God, I learned that day how love can pardon. 
I see by the knowing smile that some of you have had a 
new waist dusted on the evening of the first day's 
wear. Love is not only ready to forgive, but has also 
acquired the art of foregetting. A few days later 
something went wrong down at the barn and our big 
brother and the hired man said, ' i You boys had better 
go down and see the wheat again. ' ' Mother overheard 
their taunt from the milkhouse where she was slicing 
cured ham for breakfast, and called to them, "Come 
boys, that has all been settled. Now I don't want to 
hear you mention it again." Mother had not only 
forgiven but had resolved that it must be forgotten. 
Such is the operation of love. 

Here is a wayward son who, spurning the counsel 
of his mother, has gone deeper and deeper into sin, 
and brought disgrace upon the family name ; his asso- 
ciates have turned him down and he must seclude him- 
self to evade the officers of the law. I see this son at 
the midnight hour as he returns home from his revel- 



98 GREAT THINGS OF THE BIBLE 

ry in sin. He enters his mother's room, tiptoes to her 
bedside and is surprised to find her awake. Her face 
is moistened with his tears of repentance as he pathet- 
ically asks forgiveness. Before he finishes his confes- 
sion in which he pours out the dregs of a broken heart, 
forgiveness is granted. The two affectionately em- 
brace and rejoice together. It matters little how deep 
into sin we have gone, when we come with a broken 
and contrite heart to our Heavenly Father, He abun- 
dantly pardons; love cannot do otherwise. It is the 
fixed law of love to forgive the penitent sinner and 
forget the sin. When we repent God casts our sins 
behind His back and will remember them against us no 
more forever. Having love in the heart we too, stand 
ready to pardon an erring brother when convinced 
that he is sincere in seeking forgiveness. Until "seven- 
ty times seven" love will pardon. In fact, forgiving 
love is never limited by the multiplication table. 

VII. Love's Punishment. 

Finally, love may manifest itself through punish- 
ment. This is a hard lesson which all must learn. 
Happy are they who learn it in early years. I meet 
some who take exceptions to the fact that God is Love, 
asserting that a loving God would not punish man. 
They remind me of a bit of personal experience which 
differs little from that of the average youth who is 
reared in a home where love reigns. In the yard of 
our old farm home in Illinois were cherry trees from 
the roots of which grew up many sprouts, and it al- 



ESSENCE OF THE GOSPEL 99 

ways seemed to me that mother was particularly fond 
of cherry. A growth of two years, four feet in length, 
was nearest her ideal; three weeks' seasoning added 
to its condition, and it was a fixed custom of the home 
to have one or more of these ready at hand. In some 
homes this would be an appropriate motto to hang 
just above the cherry switch, "I need thee every 
hour." You must remember Solomon says, "He that 
spareth his rod, hateth his son; but he that loveth 
him chasteneth him betimes. ' ' 

Well do I remember when there had been a viola- 
tion of some simple law of the home, mother would 
take the cherry in her right hand and the hand of her 
offending son in her left, leading him to the rear of 
the house where she delivered a soul stirring speech. 
She made no attempt at polished sentences and rhetor- 
ical dignity in these speeches, but since becoming a 
man I have classified them along with the choicest 
gems of literature. They were brief but to the point 
and never failed to make "Sin become exceeding sin- 
ful". Be this said ever to her loving memory, she 
never used the switch when there was anger in her 
heart, and I pray that every parent may have like 
good judgement. It was difficult to harmonize in my 
mind how a loving mother could punish her son, yet 
she assured me that the big end of the stick was more 
painful than the little end; that it hurt her more to 
give the correction than it did the son to receive it. 
I often wished she would change ends with the switch. 



100 GREAT THINGS OF THE BIBLE 

In the operation we became very patriotic, she made 
stripes and I saw stars. 

Was not mother right? Time has brought some of 
us to the big end of the switch, and we now agree with 
her that there is greater pain in giving than in receiv- 
ing the punishment of love. While the cherry smarts 
the erring child for a time it is after all but a tonic 
and feels good when it quits hurting. An hour later 
he whistles more sweetly, speaks more politely, obeys 
more willingly, and invites some task or volunteers 
to run an errand. IBs pain is gone and he has been 
greatly benefited by love's expression. I have been 
in homes where the little fellows were actually itching 
for ' ' cherry tea ' ', and the pity is that they should be 
denied this tonic which would mean so much to their 
well-being. The mother who has found it necessary to 
punish an erring child lies awake until a late hour 
of the night : the pain that comes from the big end of 
the cherry is gnawing at the vitals of her heart. She 
hears the corrected child turn in his little bed and goes 
to him, smooths his troubled brow, kisses his inviting 
cheek and gently tucks the cover about him. Assured- 
ly love has no joy in punishing the offender, but the 
fact that it is long-suffering and punishes with discre- 
tion, does not invalidate the unchanging law, "I will 
punish you according to the fruit of your ways, saith 
the Lord." God takes no delight in punishing evil- 
doers as He assures through His prophet, "Say unto 
them, as I live, saith the Lord God, I have no pleasure 
in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn 



ESSENCE OF THE GOSPEL 101 

from his way and live; turn ye, turn ye from your 
evil ways ; for why will ye die, O house of Israel 1 ' ' 

The love of God is a vast ocean, the depth of which 
has never been fathomed, and the circumference not 
entirely explored; it is the central truth of the Bible, 
the Essence of the Gospel. Proclaim the love of God 
throughout the earth. "Let the weary of all lands 
pillow their heads on the bosom of God's love. Let 
the timid and the fearful feel the clasp of the arms 
of God's love. Let the despondent and the sad look 
out of their darkness at the noontide splendor of 
God's love. Let the broken hearted and desolate 
hear the music of the anthem of God's love. Let the 
guilty and the conscience-stricken look up from their 
sin into the compassionate eyes of God's love. The 
human heart was made for God's love. It is empty 
without it, whatever else it may have. It is full with 
it, whatever else it may lack." I pray you, my friend, 
open the flood gates of your soul and let the high 
tide of God's love flow into your heart. 



vn 

THE TRIUMPHAL CLIMAX 

"1 have finished the work which thou gcwest me to do." — 
John 17:4. 

Jesus was not spasmodic in His devotion to the cause 
which brought Him to earth. There was a sublime 
application to this work during the eighteen silent 
years, for He emerged from them with the Sermon 
on the Mount upon His lips. This devotion brought 
Him from Nazareth to Jerusalem and baptised Him 
with eloquence. One fifth of the entire Gospel record 
of this triumphal, climactic Life is occupied in re- 
lating events within twenty-four hours of the Cross. 
Men speak of Alexander the Great, of Charlemagne 
the Great, and of Napoleon the Great ; will you accept 
the title of Jesus the Great? He was great in His 
birth; so great that Heaven sent its brightest star to 
illuminate His manger cradle, an angel choir to sing 
and wise men and shepherds to worship. Our Christ- 
mas is but a smile from that Cradle. He was great in 
His nature; so human that He wept with Mary and 
Martha at the tomb of their brother, so divine that He 
said, " Lazarus, come forth," and was obeyed. He 
was great in His message; so great that the common 
people heard Him gladly, wise men and doctors of the 
law marvelled at His understanding and answers. He 
always "spake as one having authority." He alone 

MB 



THE TRIUMPHAL CLIMAX 107 

could say, "lam the resurrection and the life." He 
was great in His influence ; so great that He did more 
in three brief years of His public ministry to make 
manhood strong and womanhood beautiful than all 
the philosophers of ancient and modern times. He was 
great in His death ; so great that He never shrank from 
the Cross, and one who stood by and saw Him die 
1 ' Glorified God, saying, ' certainly this was a righteous 
man' ". May the Spirit of God illuminate our vision 
and enlighten our minds as we look upon Him in the 
dying hour. 

I. The Cross Upon Jesus. 

In speaking of His Triumphal Climax, I invite you 
to come with me and we will pass over the holy ground 
with Him during these last twenty-four hours. The 
student of the Crucifixion notices many marvelous 
things which escape the less observant. All the actors 
in the drama of the Gospel history appear on the stage 
in this last scene as if compelled by an inexorable 
fate. Sadducees and Pharisees, governors and priests, 
disciples who were loyal to Him, and those who would 
sell Him for silver, men who loved Him secretly, and 
women whom nothing daunted, all passed into His 
light and passing received their judgment. This is 
not the deft compilation of the writer of fiction, nor 
the artifice of discerning literature. It is the finger of 
God. No man with right intelligence, who lays aside 
all prejudice and eliminates bias from his mind, can 
tread this holy circuit with the Master, observe how 



104 GREAT THINGS OF THE BIBLE 

He was reviled, yet reviled not again, can look upon 
His pierced hands and hear His seven sentences from 
the Cross, and come to any other conclusion than that 
Hje was more than human, joining those who, witness- 
ing His death, declared, 'Truly this was the Son of 
God." 

These last days have been strenuous ones and now 
with His disciples He partakes of the Passover Feast. 
The early evening is spent with them in personal con- 
versation. After giving them the bread and wine, 
emblems of His broken body and spilled blood, He 
foretells His crucifixion and how they will all be of- 
fended in Him before the morning; then enters the 
Garden of Gethsmane and stations the disciples to 
watch in prayer with Him. They being physically 
exhausted, soon fall asleep, and there He agonizes 
until great beads of perspiration like as of blood stand 
upon His brow. 

For what does Jesus thus pray? What is the cup 
from which He seeks to be delivered? Here scholars 
differ. Some are inclined to think He was praying to 
be delivered from the Cross, that the humanity of 
Christ was shrinking from the awful death by cruci- 
fixion, and pleading that, if in any other way the 
world could be saved from sin, He might be spared 
from this shameful end. Others believe He was pray- 
ing to be spared from the approaching mob that He 
might not meet death before reaching the Cross; for 
He knew a mob knows no bounds, and in fulfillment of 
His own statement desired to be lifted up as Moses 



THE TRIUMPHAL CLIMAX 105 

lifted up the serpent in the wilderness. But neither 
of these explanations is satisfactory, for did not Jesus 
say, before leaving the garden, with reference to His 
defense, ' ' Thinkest thou that I cannot now pray to my 
Father, and He shall presently give me more than 
twelve legions of angels ? ' ' which means He could have 
been saved from the mob and delivered from going to 
the Cross. I do not believe He feared the one nor 
shrank from the other. The cup from which He pray- 
ed to be delivered was something vastly more than is 
implied in either of these explanations, as we shall 
presently see. 

Then came the betrayal. A band of men and officers 
from the chief priests and Pharisees came with torches 
and weapons, Judas Iscariot leading the way, to lay 
hold upon Him. Jesus voluntarily submitted Himself, 
requesting Peter to sheathe the sword with which he 
boldly offered defense, assuring him, in the words 
above quoted, that at His request, legions of angels 
would have been sent from the Father. The last thing 
Jesus did before going to the Cross was to heal a 
wound inflicted by one of his followers. It must have 
been about the hour of midnight when they bound 
Him and led Him away to the Judgment Hall. The 
mob met with no resistance. Of the friends of Jesus, 
only Peter and John followed after Him, and they 
kept at a safe distance. 

Next came the trial. It was probably three o'clock 
in the morning when they led Hlim to Caiaphas, the 
high priest, where the scribes and elders were as- 



106 GREAT THINGS OF THE BIBLE 

sembled. "Now the chief priests and elders and all 
the council sought false witness against Jesus, to put 
Him to death, but found none. At the last came two 
false witnesses." "But their witness agreed not to- 
gether". Jesus was then brought before Pilate, the 
Governor. Pilate "knew that for envy they had de- 
livered Him ; ' ' and in fulfillment of the custom of re- 
leasing one prisoner at the Passover Feast he chose 
to release Jesus; but to this the multitude would not 
consent. There was a succession of trials, six in num- 
ber; three each in the ecclesiastical and the civil 
courts, all of which were illegal if for no other reason 
than the hours at which court was convened. 

While these trials were in progress, occurred the 
denial by Peter, the sad story with which we are quite 
familiar, and the remorse of Judas. Poor fellow! 
"When he saw that Jesus was condemned (he) brought 
again the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests 
and elders saying, 'I have sinned in that I have be- 
trayed the innocent blood. " ' He then departed and 
took his own life. This is the witness they should have 
had before the council. He knew what he was talking 
about. The determined mob demanded the release of 
Barabbas; "then Pilate said unto them, 'What shall 
I do with Jesus which is called Christ % ' They all said 
unto him, 'Let Him be crucified.' And the governor 
said, 'Why, what evil hath He done? I have found 
no cause of death in Him. I find in Him no fault 
at all/ But they cried out the more saying, 'Let Him 
be crucified.' " The governor's wife also called Him a 



HE TRIUMPHAL CLIMAX 107 

"Just person, " and so He was; but with Pilate's per- 
mission, the mob shouted, "On to Calvary". 

In derision they cried, "See the king! Ah! if He 
is a king He must have a robe, so they ' ' stripped Him, 
and put on Him a scarlet robe." If a king, He must 
have a crown. "And when they had platted a crown 
of thorns, they put it upon His head. ' ' What sort of 
a king would that be who had no scepter? So they 
"put a reed in His right hand; and "they bowed the 
knee before Him, and mocked Him, saying, 'Hail, king 
of the Jews!' And they spit upon Him, and took the 
reed, and smote Him on the head." 



"The deepest trials that we know 
A higher grace discloses; 

Men saw the thorns on Jesus' brow, 
But angels saw the roses ! ' ' 



That was a trying week through which He had just 
passed. The physical strength of His followers was 
altogether exhausted as seen in the garden, and Jesus 
had neither rest nor sleep. What a night that must 
have been ! The evening was spent in the upper room 
with the disciples, then followed the agony in the 
garden, then the betrayal and trial, and now our Lord 
sinks beneath the weight of the heavy cross on which 
He is to be crucified. The wonder is that He has been 
able to endure the physical strain and treatment to 
which He has been subjected. ' ' Surely He hath borne 
our griefs and carried our sorrows. He was wounded 
for our transgressions. He was bruised for our in- 
iquities ; the chastisement of our peace was upon Him ; 



108 GREAT THINGS OF THE BIBLE 

and with Has stripes we are healed. He was oppressed 
and He was afflicted, yet He opened not His mouth : " ' 
He had been much in conversation with His disciples 
all through the early evening hours, but when the mob 
laid hold upon Him, scarcely a word He uttered. ' ' He 
was brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep 
before her shearers is dumb, so He opened not His 
mouth. 

Be is a great Savior, great in His birth; great in 
His nature, great in His message, great in His influ- 
ence, and, marvel of marvels, great in His death. 
In the shadow of the Cross He deliberately prays, 
"Father, the hour is come, glorify thy Son, that thy 
Son also may glorify thee. I have glorified thee on 
the earth ; I have finished the work which thou gavest 
me to do. And now, Father, glorify thou me with 
thine own self with the glory which I had with thee 
before the world was." When they placed the cross 
upon Jesus His humanity was crushed beneath its 
weight but murmured not, for He was silent; when 
they placed Him upon the cross His divinity triumph- 
ed over the shame and He spoke seven assuring sen- 
tences which I now ask you to hear. I do not know 
that the order in which they are given is correct, in 
this we cannot be certain. They are all very short. 
Three of the seven are prayers and all give evidence 
that they spring from a heart that is more than 
human. May the Spirit of God give us in this hour 
a vision of Him who is fairer than ten thousand and 
altogether lovely. 



THE TRIUMPHAL CLIMAX 109 

II. Jesus Upon The Cross. 

In the first utterance from the cross we see the 
spirit of forgiveness. At nine o'clock the cross was 
lifted into place and Jesus was nailed, hands and feet, 
to die as the crucified die. The silence of Jesus 
through all these hours had been the marvel of those 
who took His life. Soon after the last spike had been 
driven, the rejoicing mob was silenced by the awe of 
the scene, for, " sitting down they watched Him 
there"; "Hark!" says one, "He speaks." What is 
the first sentence from the cross? It is a prayer. 
Listen! "Then said Jesus, 'Father, forgive them, for 
they know not what they do' ". Luke 23 :34. 

No word of complaint. No thought of His own 
suffering; but He pours out His heart to God in be- 
half of those who took His life. What better evidence 
than this could any want that He who thus speaks is 
more than human? What a practical application of 
His teaching in the Sermon on the Mount, ' ' I say unto 
you, love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do 
good to them that hate you and pray for them which 
despitef ully use you and persecute you. ' ' Jesus never 
taught what He did not practice. The hardest thing 
He ever asked us to do He practiced to the last minute 
of His life. To have censured and condemned those 
whose hands were dripping with one's own blood, 
would have been most natural. To have forgiven 
when forgiveness was earnestly sought would have 
been the highest act of humanity. But to pray that 



110 GREAT THINGS OF THE BIBLE 

those who are yet rejoicing over their heinous crime 
might be forgiven, is divine. Such a Savior is ours; 
how can you longer reject Him? 

In the second sentence we have His promised pres- 
ence. The cross upon which Jesus was crucified occu- 
pied the central position of three. On either side of 
Him was a thief dying by crucifixion. It is said one 
of these men "railed on Him". "But the other answer- 
ing rebuked him saying, 'Dost thou not fear God? 
We indeed justly suffer ; for we receive the due reward 
of our deeds; but this Man hath done nothing amiss.' 
And he said unto Jesus, 'Lord, remember me when 
thou comest into thy kingdom. ' ' ' Then came the 
second sentence from the cross; "Verily I say unto 
thee, to-day shalt thou be with me in paradise." 
Luke 23 :43. 

Jesus never failed to hear the cry of a penitent 
sinner, not even in the hour of death. He could only 
pray the Father to have mercy upon the frenzied mob, 
but to the penitent thief who sought forgiveness, He 
opened the gate of paradise into which they were soon 
to enter. He who heard the cry of a lost soul in an 
hour when His own life's blood was ebbing away, will 
hear the cry of the penitent soul to-day, for He is now 
at the right hand of God to make intercession for us. 

In the third sentence from the cross we have the 
great transfer. Jesus before departing made HSs will. 
If someone should compile a volume containing the 
wills of those who have so benevolently and judiciously 
provided for a thousand charities, it would be a help- 



THE TRIUMPHAL CLIMAX 111 

ful book in the hands of all who have the solemn re- 
sponsibility of disposing of their life 's savings. There 
have been some remarkable wills made of recent years, 
unique in their brevity and clearness. The will of a 
recent capitalist conveyed property to the value of one 
million dollars per word. Our Savior's will contains 
but seven words. In brevity, clearness and scope it 
stands without an equal. He was a poor man. At His 
birth He was placed in a borrowed cradle. When He 
read in the synagogue, the book was borrowed; A 
fisherman loaned Him a boat for a pulpit. The only 
record of His riding tells of the borrowed beast. He 
had no home, not even a place to lay His head. His 
first pillow was straw, His last a wreath of thorns. 
His first companions were cattle. His last, thieves. 
He was crucified upon another man's cross and buried 
in another man's tomb. Why need He make a will? 
He had just one treasure in the world, this He passed 
on to a friend, and the will of no millionaire ever con- 
veyed more than was transferred by those words of 
Jesus. 

At the noon hour there came a darkness over the 
earth such as was never before nor since witnessed. 
Amid the friends gathered at the foot of the cross 
there stood one kissing His feet and bathing them with 
her tears, the dearest life in all the earth to Him. 
Yes, a true mother will follow her son to the cross and 
a true son will thoughtfully care for his aged mother. 
We believe this mother was now a widow, age had al- 
ready begun to manifest itself in infirmity, and Jesus 



V 

112 GREAT THINGS OF THE BIBLE 

lovingly provided for her declining days. Our Savior 
is divine, but He was also human, and every chord 
of affection was stirred in His heart in thought of His 
mother. What could He do for her ? Happy thought ! 
Here is John, my traest friend ; I shall will her to him. 
"Now there stood by the cross of Jesus, His mother. 
* * * When Jesus therefore saw His mother, and 
the disciple standing by, whom He loved, He saith 
unto His mother, 'Woman, behold thy son!' Then 
saith He to the disciple, 'Behold thy mother!' And 
from that hour that disciple took her into his own 
home." John 19:25-27. Yes, He willed His mother 
to John. It is a pleasant thought to know that John 
lived to a very ripe age, and without question he was 
true to his trust and provided for the mother a good 
home all the days of her life. 

In the fourth sentence we see the physical suffering 
of Jesus. In all these trying hours He has had no 
thought of His own suffering till now. He has made 
intercession for His enemies, granted the petition of 
the penitent thief, and graciously provided for an 
aged mother, now He offers two words for Himself. 
Twice in the life of Christ He asked for a personal 
favor, only twice, not withstanding He was a poor 
man. He performed many miracles, but never to 
meet His physical needs or to add to Hiis personal com^ 
forts. He fed the five thousand in the wilderness, but 
He went forty days without food. I repeat, but 
twice did He ask a personal favor. He asked for the 
most common and plentiful thing in all the world, and 



THE TRIUMPHAL CLIMAX 113 

was denied both times. We would not deny the most 
suspicious looking tramp that came with a like re- 
quest. Who would refuse a drink of water, especially 
when it would relieve suffering? 

Jesus, when weary with His journey, was resting at 
the well, and asked the woman of Samaria for a drink. 
She could not understand how He, a Jew, would ask 
her, a Samaritan, for a drink, and when He spoke to 
her about the water of life, she ran with joy to the 
eity without granting His request. And now, while 
on the cross, He says, "I thirst." John 19:28. It is 
said the loss of blood produces a burning thirst other- 
wise unequalled. When He suffered thus He asked 
for water, and those in charge of crucified bodies 
taunted Him by dipping a sponge into vinegar and 
offered Him that instead. Thus they thought to in- 
tensify His suffering, but He bore it without reproof. 

In the fifth sentence on the cross, we see His spir- 
itual agony. It was then that He drank the dregs of 
the cup of our sins. It was then that He bore the 
burden of all transgression, and He was made to groan 
beneath the load. It is said that often in the last 
breath of life, one will speak in his mother tongue, 
the tongue of his childhood. So Jesus, in agony cried 
out in the language of the village in which He was 
reared, "Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani. ' ' Mathew 27 :46, 
which means, "My God, My God, why hast thou for- 
saken me?" This was the second of the three prayers 
on the cross and what could be the meaning of this 
cry? To me it is clear. I was in a physician's office 



114 GREAT THINGS OF THE BIBLE 

some years ago when a father came in with a son who 
had met with a painful accident. The child was in 
great distress and it required the father and myself to 
handle him while the physician was dressing the 
wound. It was a heart rending scene and just at the 
most critical moment, when the father 's assistance was 
most needed, he was so affected that he was forced to 
leave the room. Can I ever forget the lad's cry, "O, 
papa, come back, stay with me papa, don't leave me, 
come here papa, don't let 'em hurt me." But the 
fainting father could not endure the scene, and left 
the room. 

So it seems our heavenly Father could not look upon 
His only begotten Son when He was vicariously suffer- 
ing for the sin of the world. He veiled the earth in 
dense darkness to hide the scene from the view of man, 
but since darkness hideth not from Him, He withdrew 
His presence and Jesus suffered alone. It was hard 
when His diciples forsook Him, but doubly so that the 
Father, so to speak, passed from the room. And Jesus, 
all alone, bore our sins in His own body. Does not 
this help explain His agony in the garden the night 
before ? Was not this the cup from which He prayed 
to be delivered, the withdrawal of the Father's pres- 
ence ? All our sins, sorrows, bereavements, losses and 
all the agonies of earth and hell were picked up as in 
one cluster and squeezed into one cup, and that press- 
ed to His lips, until the nauseating, bitter draught 
was swallowed with a gurgling strangulation. No 
wonder the earth trembled beneath Him with the load 



THE TRIUMPHAL CLIMAX 115 

of sin. No wonder midnight darkness went up to the 
heavens to close the scene from view. No wonder His 
perspiration in the garden was as blood. 

' ' Oh, the love that drew salvation 's plan, 
Oh, the grace that brought it down to man, 
Oh, the gulf that Christ ALONE did span, 
At Calvary. > ' 

In the sixth utterance from the cross, we have vic- 
tory declared. Jesus came on a special mission, "To 
seek and to save that which was lost. ' ' We have heard 
Him say in the words of our text :" I have finished the 
work which thou gavest me to do. ' ' And now, after 
the spiritual agony which we have just considered, we 
hear Him pronounce victory to the work of salvation 
by grace in the words, "It is finished." John 19:30. 
That was a great day in which our nation was born. 
Great was the joy when Independence was declared, 
and the Liberty Bell pealed out the good news, having 
this Scripture inscribed upon her rim of steel : ' ' Pro- 
claim liberty throughout all the land unto all the in- 
habitants thereof." But that victorious shout was 
followed by the scourge of war, before Independence 
was really attained ; and then it was not ' ' Liberty un- 
to all the inhabitants, ' ' for there were those bound 
with the shackles of slavery. Once more was heard 
the call to arms, and four years of civil war finally 
gave freedom to all, but still we are in the midst of 
inequality and favoritism. Not so with the victory de- 
clared when the Savior says, "It is finished , \ Who- 
soever will may come and take of the water of life 



116 GREAT THINGS OF THE BIBLE 

freely. "If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye 
shall be free indeed/ ' 

In the seventh word from the cross, we have the 
Spirit's return. Here we have the last of the seven 
utterances, and the third prayer. "Father, into thy 
hands I commend my spirit.' ' Luke 23:46. These 
are the dying words of Jesus. What could be sweeter t 
The last words of great men impress us much and we 
bend over the forms of our departing friends, eager 
to catch the whispered message; and often that brief 
sentence from the lips that will nevermore speak, 
means more to us than the best volume in our libraries, 
excepting the Book of Life. Hbw sweet and helpful 
are the parting words of Jesus: "Father, into thy 
hands, I commend my spirit." Having thus spoken, 
He closed His eyes in death and thus with triumph He 
met the end. " When the centurion saw what was 
done, he glorified God, saying, ' Certainly this was a 
righteous man;' and they that were with him watch- 
ing Jesus, saw the earthquake and those things that 
were done, feared greatly saying, ' Truly this was the 
Son of God. ' ' ' If we have walked with Jesus through 
the last twenty-four hours of His life without bias and 
prejudice, surely we must all exclaim with Peter, 
"Thou are the Christ, the Son of the living God." 

The mysterious darkness was now lifted from the 
earth. Then came Joseph of Arimathea and Nicode- 
mus, two prominent men, members of the Sanhedrim, 
and tenderly lowered the body of Jesus from the 
cross, embalmed it with a hundred pounds of myrrh 



THE TRIUMPHAL CLIMAX 117 

and aloes, wrapped it in clean linen cloth, and laid it 
in Joseph's new tomb. Thus the greatest life in all 
the world terminated. The act of Joseph and Nico- 
demns, together with that of the women who came 
later to the sepulchre to anoint His body, is very 
commendable ; but how much better, had they followed 
the act of Mary who anointed Him with spikenard 
in the home of Simon before the end came. He was 
pierced with thorns in the morning and laid to rest 
beneath a wreath of flowers in the evening. He was 
taunted with vinegar on the cross and bathed with 
ointment for the tomb. He was deserted when in the 
hands of a mob, but a host of friends wore a path to 
His tomb. Do not pierce the heart of a friend with the 
thorns of sharp words today, for tomorrow you may 
carry flowers to his grave. Do not crucify afresh the 
Son of Man to-day, for if not before, you will in the 
end of life cry to Him for mercy. No greater joy can 
you bring the Lord* than to give Him your heart and 
live a clean, devoted life. May this meditation of the 
Triumphal Climax of the life of our Savior, lift us 
all to higher ground and lead us in all the acts of life 
to holy endeavor. 



VIII 

THE PATH OF THE JUST 



"Enoch walked with God: and he was tiot: for God took him.* ' 
— Genesis 5:24. 



What one word is more descriptive than the all-in- 
clusive word, "Just"? What better fulfillment of 
the declaration, * ' the path of the just is as the shining 
light that shineth more and more unto the perfect 
day," is to be found than in the breif sketch of the 
princely life of Enoch? Few studies can be more 
profitable than the writings of some impartial biogra- 
pher in which he breathes again the breath of life 
into some great character. The Bible is largely a book 
of biographies. Genesis gives a rather detailed account 
of six men who learned to know and trust God — 
Adam, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Joseph; also 
a brief sketch of many more early dwellers upon earth 
who became acquainted with Him, among whom is 
Enoch. We would, of course, like to have the entire 
story of this devoted life, but from the brief account 
given, it seems that God pinned a for-get-me-not on 
the lapel of his coat, and his three biographers, Moses, 
Paul and Jude, give as noble an epitaph as was ever 
chiseled into marble. In the study of this holy com- 
panionship with God, let us see some of the many 

paths of blessing into which it is certain to lead. 

us 



THE PATH OF THE JUST 119 

I. A Path op Fellowship. 

The great characteristic of Enoch's life is that he 
' ' walked with God. ' ' What a comforting picture of 
tenderness and sympathy and of divine fellowship 
is proffered to us in the Bible! And we are assured 
that it is within the reach of every child of God. 
What an index of character it is to know with whom 
one walks ! In the brief account which we have of 
Enoch, pains are taken to assure us that this was not 
merely a chance occurrence, but rather the habit of 
his life. The record is, ' ' All the days of Enoch were 
three hundred sixty and five years, and he walked with 
God, and he was not ; for God took him. ' ' We do not 
go walking with every chance stranger we meet, but 
usually with those of our more intimate acquaintances 
and choice friends. The figure used indicates a fellow- 
ship at once confidential and sympathetic, such a fel- 
lowship as every true child of God is privileged to 
enjoy. 

Many cheat their souls out of one of the sweetest 
comforts of life by thinking of God as seated high 
above us, upon a great white throne. They admire 
Him, and are grateful for His mercy and goodness, 
and have a deep desire to please Him, but miss the 
thought of tender fellowship which is illustrated to 
us in the Word of God in many charming and beauti- 
ful pictures. God is represented as walking in the 
garden in the cool of the day and holding conversa- 
tion with Adam and Eve. even after their sin. When 



120 GREAT THINGS OF THE BIBLE 

Abraham dwelt at Mamre in the desert, God came 
to him in the guise of a weary traveler, and received 
food and water from the hand of his servant. And 
Jesus Christ gives a most comforting view of our re- 
lationship to God by declaring that we may enter into 
a yoke-fellowship walking side by side, bearing the 
same load, and sharing both the food and the burden 
of the divine life. 

"Enoch walked with God". As we read the fifth 
chapter of Genesis, how surprising it is to come up- 
on this humble companion of God. It is like finding 
a palm tree in the desert sand; it is as unexpected as 
finding flowers on the tops of the Alps, or strawberries 
on the summit of the Rockies. Yet we remember that 
Sodom had its Lot, Egypt its Joseph, and Babylon its 
Daniel. Likewise the fifth chapter of Genesis which 
some one has called the "chapter of nobodys", has 
its Enoch. Weston was noted for his transcontinental 
walks, and Blondin for walking a tight rope, but 
Enoch was noted for walking with God. Few are able 
at the age of seventy-two, to keep up the pace with 
Weston of thirty-five miles a day, and it is rare thing 
to find one who can approximate the feats of Blondin 
at rope walking, but all may join with Enoch in walk- 
ing with God. Enoch was one of the few men of the 
Bible for whom God had no reproof, and "Before his 
translation he had this testimony, that he pleased 
Glod." Walking with God bespeaks of an acquain- 
tanceship which becomes more intimate with the pass- 
ing of the years. 



THE PATH OF THE JUST 121 

We are quite accurately known by the company we 
keep. You are not left to guess which way a man is 
headed when you learn the character of his intimate 
companions. One may be surrounded by very un- 
desirable associates and suffer no ill effect, but when he 
begins to keep step with them he becomes a part and 
partner in all their licentiousness. "Blessed is the 
man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, 
nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the 
seat of the scornful. ' ' This first refrain of the Psalm- 
ist expresses a truth that is illustrated by the follow- 
ing story : A man who had a sweet singing canary felt 
that it was a great pity, when spring came, to keep y 
the poor bird in the house, so he decided to hang 
the cage under a large tree in the yard, for the 
summer. This tree was the home of many English 
sparrows, and before he realized what was taking place 
the little canary had lost all of its sweet notes. It 
had spent the summer in bad company, and its sweet 
song never came back. When it was taken in the 
house in the fall he heard only its monotonous twitter, 
twitter, twitter. There are some professing christians 
who had a beautiful testimony several years ago, but 
who have lost their witness, and now when they would 
1 ' speak with the tongues of men and of angels, ' ' they 
"become as sounding brass or a tinkling symbol.' ' 
They have broken step with God and lost their ex- 
perience. My prayer is that we may all learn to walk 
with Him in the path of Christian fellowship. 



122 GREAT THINGS OF THE BIBLE 

II. A Path of Consecration. 

"Those who would walk in the path of the just must 
heed the exhortation, "I beseech you therefore, breth- 
ren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies 
a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is 
your reasonable service. And be not conformed to this 
world, but be ye transformed by the renewing of your 
mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and 
acceptable and perfect will of God". We become 
more and more like those with whom we walk. I 
wonder, sister, if when you came home from making 
that call the other day. the lady said to the members 
of her family, "Well, Mrs. Church-member was here 
to-day to see me, and every time she calls, she makes 
me think of Jesus by her considerate judgment and 
comforting words." Brother, I wonder if the fellow 
you sold goods to or traded horses with, told his friends 
you just made him feel like he was trading with 
Jesus. I have known some horse traders who made 
you feel that way while you were trading with them, 
but in the course of a few hours you had changed 
your mind about them and the horse too. 

He who walks with God will become God-like, as- 
cending in this holy comradeship from the valley to 
the mountain top where he is given a new vision of 
life and future destiny. To become God-like one must 
live and walk in the same altitude with God, spirit- 
ually and morally. The man who says he does not 
believe in God and Christianity is too low down to 



THE PATH OF THE JUST 123 

appreciate God's altitude. Yuma, Arizona, has a very 
low altitude and is shut in by lofty mountains, the 
temperature in summer frequently rising to one hun- 
dred twenty-five degrees in the shade. Suppose I 
should talk to a citizen of that place of the rare, cool 
air in Colorado, and that from the summit of Pike's 
Peak one can look to the south, west and north and 
see snow-capped mountains rising dome above dome 
for a distance of one hundred and twenty miles, or 
by facing the east a basket shaped valley sixty miles 
in diameter, a veritable garden of luxury, is spread 
out in view. In wonderment he would say, " Non- 
sense, you can't see mountains one hundred and 
twenty miles away". And the man who never walks 
with God in the path of consecration to the summit 
of Mount Righteousness may look with contempt upon 
the Bible and the profession of the devoted Christian. 
The consecrated Christian life is most beautifully 
set forth in the third chapter of Paul's letter to the 
Colossians, which opens with these words, "If ye then 
be risen with Christ, * * * set your affection on 
things above, not on things on the earth." There 
are six things said of the consecrated Christian life 
in this chapter. First, we are told what to put of. 
"Put off all these: anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, 
filthy communication out of your mouth; lie not one 
to another, seeing that ye have put off the old man 
with his deeds". The man who lies or holds malice 
in his heart has broken step with God. We are then 
told what to put on. "Put on the new man, which 



124 GREAT THINGS OF THE BIBLE 

is renewed in knowledge after the image of Him that 
created him. Put on, therefore, as the elect of God, 
holy and beloved, bowels of mercies, kindness, hum- 
bleness of mind, meekness, long suffering; forbearing 
one another, and forgiving one another, if any man 
have a quarrel against any, even as Christ forgave 
you, so also do ye. And above all these put on charity 
which is the bond of perf ectness. ' ' It means some- 
thing to walk with God in the path of consecration. 
Again, we are told what to put in. "Let the peace 
of God rule in your hearts, and let the word of Christ 
dwell in you richly in all wisdom. ' ' That is the filling 
one has when he walks with God. Then we are told 
what to do. Here we have the duties of wives to 
husbands and husbands to wives; the duties of chil- 
dren to parents and parents to children; the duties 
of servants to masters and masters to servants. Next 
we are told how this is to be done. "Whatsoever ye 
do, do it heartily as to the Lord". In the concluding 
verses we are told of the reward for our services. 

When you see professing Christians who would 
rather be with the ungodly, participating in vulgar 
stories, than with devoted Christians, look out for 
their piety ; it is only superficial. If you would rather 
go to a place where Christ is sneered and scoffed at, 
than where God's people are, there is something rad- 
ically wrong. When you would rather lock arms and 
two-step with the devil on the dance floor, than walk 
the path of purity with God, you have lost all the 
Christianity you ever had and will never find it again 



THE PATH OF THE JUST 125 

until you break step with the devil and meet Christ 
at Calvary. I pray that we may have the infilling 
of the Spirit, that henceforth we may walk arm in 
arm with the Lord in the path of consecration. 

III. A Path of Obedience. 

Obedience is the price of fellowship and the fruit 
of consecration. Eight hundred years before Christ, 
Amos put this interrogation, * ' Can two walk together 
except they be agreed?" Some people seem to act 
upon the presumption that they have a right to dictate 
the terms of agreement between themselves and God. 
It is said of Enoch that he " pleased God," and Jesus 
could say, "I do always those things that please Him". 
Jesus walked in the path of obedience and He ever 
had fellowship with the Father. Where Enoch and 
Jesus tread we may safely follow. "Not my will, but 
thine, be done, ' ' is the prayer to utter. Of all people 
to be pitied those who try to keep step with God on 
Sunday and flirt with the devil the remaining six days 
of the week come first. They remind me of an old 
apple tree near my boyhood home which stood at the 
fence line by the roadside. Its branches spread both 
into the field and out over the highway. There was 
always a contention as to whether the fruit of this 
tree belonged to the farmer or to the public. An 
unwritten law said it belonged to the one first to club 
it down. Every boy, big and little, watched to see 
when the apples were beginning to turn red and then 
the battle was on. I do not remember ever getting 



126 GREAT THINGS OF THE BIBLE 

a ripe apple from that old tree and I was careful to 
see that everybody else was treated likewise. I never 
passed but what I saw lodged in its branches a lot 
of broom handles, gambrel sticks, and old wagon 
spokes. That tree got more clubbing than a whole 
orchard. There are many professing Christians who 
hang out on both sides of the fence, and they receive 
clubs from every direction. The world doesn't believe 
in their religion and the Gospel is a goad to the con- 
science every time they hear a sermon. 

Micah gives a beautiful definition of the Christian 
religion in which there are three requirements, each 
calling for an act of obedience. ' ' What doth the Lord 
require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, 
and to walk humbly with thy God". According to 
this last requirement the man who walks with God 
must not only be obedient but also humble. When 
you see one who has the big head, put it down that 
he has lost step and if he doesn't know it he ought 
to be told, as was a young minister of whom I once 
heard. He had gone to his new field in the South 
and was spending his first night in the home of a 
planter, one of his parishioners. After an evening's 
talk in which he had set himself well in the limelight 
he was shown to his room on the second floor. Then 
little Sammy, a colored lad who had been nodding on 
the box behind the stove, overheard this conversation : 
''Well, what do you think of the new parson?" said 
the planter's wife to her husband. "Oh, I guess he's 
a right bright fellow, but I fear he has a touch of the 



THE PATH OF THE JUST 127 

big head and that'll kill anybody," was his reply. 
Sammy was aroused and sent to bed. Next morning 
he was asked to go up and call the preacher. He 
knocked at the door and received a response from 
within. Presently he knocked again and this time 
was admitted into the room. "I'se 'fraid you wuz 
sick dis mornin'! how am yo' haid feelin' ?" "What 
makes you ask that, Sammy? My head is all right 
as far as I know." "Well, suh, de massa gen 'ally 
knows 'bout dem things an' saved las' night dat he 
wuz purty sho' you done hab a tech ob de big haid 
an' dat would sho' kill you." Sammy took the swell- 
ing out of that fellow's head in a minute, and if there 
are any of that kind of Christians around here, by 
the help of God, I will try to do as much for them 
as Sammy did for the new minister. 

He who walks with God will become a soul winner. 
Just now we are especially interested in knowing how 
we may win men for Christ. "Follow me," said 
Jesus, "and I will make you to become fishers of men. " 
In every century and in all generations those who 
stand out as great soul winners are the men and wom- 
en who walked in the steps of the Savior. The chief 
concern of all who profess to be followers of the Lord 
should be to lead their friends to Christ during this 
meeting. He who caters to the things of the flesh and 
lightly regards the things of the Spirit, will have no 
influence for good with the unsaved. It is the height 
of folly to think you can trot with the cloven hoofed 
tempter and leave behind you the footprints of a 



128 GREAT THINGS OF THE BIBLE 

saint. I pray that we may all humbly follow our Lord 
in the path of obedience that we may indeed become 
" fishers of men." 

IV. A Path That Leads to Glory. 

Hie who travels in a circle will get nowhere, but 
he who goes walking with God will reach Heaven at 
the end of the journey, as assured in the words of 
the text. He is a great artist who can sketch a human 
portrait and condense the principal characteristics of a 
lifetime of public effort into a few brief sentences, 
and yet make the picture so clear and unique that 
it stands out, in a great portrait gallery like the Bible, 
full of abiding interest and comfort to generation 
after generation. Still more marvelous is it when 
Enoch's three biographers each take a single stroke 
using together but sixty-four words. But with all 
their brevity they do not fail to tell us that he walked 
the wilderness one day and the promised land the 
next. "Enoch was not; for God took him." The 
two disciples on their sad walk to Emmaus had the 
good fortune of being joined by Jesus. Their sorrow 
took wings and their hearts were made to burn within 
them, as He opened to them the Scripture and walked 
with them in the way. David could say, "Though I 
walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will 
fear no evil, for Thou art with me." We too have 
His promise to be with us to the end. Some paths 
may lead to riches and others to honor, but what are 
they compared to the highway in which we may walk 



THE PATH OF THE JUST 129 

with God on our way home to Glory; a path which 
"shineth more and more unto the perfect day." 

When Dewey returned from his victorious achieve- 
ment, a great reception was planned to welcome his 
coming to the homeland. Clippings were collected 
from hundreds of papers which eulogized his far- 
sighted generalship and calm valor and compiled into 
one great volume. This was presented to the Admiral 
upon his arrival, as an expression of appreciation from 
a grateful public. "What a book that was! Three 
feet in length, fifteen inches in thickness and when 
opened, four feet in width. I wonder if Mr. Dewey 
ever read it through. How monotonous would become 
the task of reading the eulogies a thousand times re- 
peated, of one man's shrewdness in a single hour's 
achievement. There is this, however, to be said of 
that book, it does not change subjects as often as an 
unabridged dictionary. As a memento it will un- 
doubtedly be handed down through many generations, 
but will be of little interest to others than the imme- 
diate relatives of the hero. The biography of Napo- 
leon fills thirty-two volumes, while Enoch 's three hun- 
dred and sixty-five years were portrayed in a brief 
sketch of only sixty-four words! Every word in his 
biography covered a period of six years. Think of 
condensing all the activities and anxieties of six years 
into a single word. If God were to use like economy 
in writing something of you, what one word would 
correctly express the past six years of your life? 
Would that word be worldliness or spirituality, faith- 



130 GREAT THINGS OF THE BIBLE 

less or faithful? For every two words in the biog- 
raphy of Enoeh we have one full volume of the life 
of Napoleon, and for one hour's service Dewey is 
given one of the largest volumes in the world, while 
for six years Enoch is given only one word. But I 
would rather have those sixty-four words written of 
Enoch as my biography and as my monument than 
all the volumes that have been written about Caesar, 
Alexander, and Napoleon. 

A little boy was detained in a country home one 
stormy night by some fascinating stories that were 
being told. Finally he went to the door to start home, 
but it was so dark he was afraid to go. He asked his 
associates to go with him, but they too were afraid 
of the storm. It grew later and he cried, saying, ' ' Oh, 
I wish I were home ! ' ' Presently he brushed back his 
tears and opened the door as if he would brave the 
storm, but a flash of blinding lightning and a deaf- 
ening roar of thunder frightened him back. In a few 
minutes he went to the window and, looking toward 
home, his tears dried away and he turned with a smile 
and said, "Now. I ain't afraid to go home." His 
friends said, "But it is dark out and still raining." 
To this he replied, "I ain't afraid of the dark now 
an' I ain't afraid of the thunder an' the rain, 'cause 
I see a lantern comin' an' it's my big brother comin' 
after me. I ain't afraid o' no storm when he holds 
my hand an' carries a light, for he knows the way 
home an' nothin' can hurt me when my big brother 
walks with me." With gladness of heart he joined 



THE PATH OF THE JUST 131 

his elder brother, who held his little hand and he was 
soon safe home, where a prepared supper and anxious 
loved ones awaited his coming. 

So may it be with us that, when the night of death 
comes and we want to go home, and our friends 
cannot go with us, and we dare not go alone, our 
Elder Brother, our Friend that sticketh closer than a 
brother, with whom we have learned to walk, will 
come out to meet us. In the light of His presence 
we will go in to join our loved ones awaiting our 
coming, and find supper ready, the marriage sup- 
per of the Lamb. It is a happy journey home when 
Jesus holds the hand and leads the way. 

A little Sunday School girl was telling a playmate 
the story of Enoch walking with God and she made 
it clearer than some commentators have been able to 
do. She said, "God came down to Enoch's house, 
one day, and they got acquainted and they liked each 
other so good that when it came time for God to 
start home, Enoch said, 'I will go a-piece with you.' 
They walked and walked and talked and enjoyed each 
other so good, Enoch forgot and went farther than 
he intended to, and then God said, ' Enoch, we are 
almost to my house, come and go on home with me, 
it is so far back to your house.' So Enoch went on 
up to God's house and he liked to live so good with 
God that he never com'd to his own house no more." 
Many of us have been going "part of the way home 
with God" and some day we will get so near "His 
House" that we will just go on home with Him and 



132 GREAT THINGS OF THE BIBLE 

dwell there forever. Oh, happy day, at home with 
God in the " house of many mansions.' ' 



IX 
THE HALFWAY HOUSE 

" They came to Haran, and dwelt there." — Gen. 11: 31. 

On a beautiful evening in July a party of ten tour- 
ists gather at the base of Pike's Peak to make the 
ascent during the hours of the night to witness the 
beautiful sunrise from the summit at the early morn- 
ing hour. They have reckoned on this climb and think 
themselves equal to the occasion. With much interest 
and full confidence the ascent is begun soon after 
nightfall. Tramp, tramp, tramp, they tread as they 
climb. Up, up, up, ever higher the trail leads, leaving 
the lights of the city of Manitou at their feet. After 
a steady march for some hours, to an altitude that 
would seem to bring them to the moon, they approach 
a little station, and the glad word is sent along the 
line that they have reached the "Summit House." 
To the surprise and utter disappointment of all they 
are told by the man in charge of the station that this 
is what is known as the ' ' Halfway House. ' ' " What, ' ' 
asks one of the weary travelers, "does this mean, we 
are but halfway up?" "It means all of that and 
more," replies the station keeper, "we call it the 
Halfway House, but in fact it is not more than two- 
fifths of the way up. The farthest climb and the 
steepest grade are yet before you." The party con- 

133 



134 GREAT THINGS OF THE BIBLE 

tinues to climb until the summit is reached, just in 
time to behold the beautiful sunrise. 

When the World's Fair was held in Chicago, in 
1893, I accompanied my father to the grounds and 
after seeing some of the most interesting exhibits we 
decided to ride the Ferris Wheel. It was an imposing 
thing towering above the surrounding buildings and 
had attracted my eye and appealed to my boyish 
spirit of adventure from our first entrance upon the 
grounds. This wheel accommodated one thousand 
passengers at once, in its thirty-four spacious cars and 
carried them to the dreamy height of two hundred 
eighty-four feet. With other passengers we entered 
one of the cars and the great wheel began to revolve, 
lifting us slowly from the crowd of spectators, in its 
great sweep. Presently we were carried up to a height 
commanding a view of the entire exposition grounds. 
Just beyond the grounds was the great lake which 
appeared to rise like a green hill back from the shore. 
Several large boats seemed to be ascending that hill 
or coasting to its foot. The people below us now 
looked no larger than little children. At last the 
great wheel came to a stop to admit other passengers 
in a car that was now at the ground. I said to father, 
"It has stopped just when we are at the top so we can 
see everything. ' ' "Yes," said he, "I guess we are 
about to the top." I then looked in the opposite 
direction and in my surprise said, "Oh, father, look! 
we can just see over the axle of the wheel/ ' We 
thought we were at the top, but were only halfway up. 



THE HALFWAY HOUSE 135 

If the ascent of Pike's Peak, or the circuit of the 
Ferris Wheel seem complete when at the halfway 
place, is it surprising that some of us who have been 
in the depths of sin should think the ascent to a 
mountain-top experience with Jesus complete when 
we have gone only half the distance with our Lord? 
Many there are who have stopped at the Halfway 
House, just as we see Abraham in the text, "They 
came to Haran and dwelt there." May the Spirit 
of God help every compromised church member to 
see himself as we look upon Abraham journeying from 
Chaldea to Canaan. 

I. In Chaldea with Kindred. 

Haran was the halfway place between Chaldea, from 
whence God called Abraham, and Canaan, the Land of 
Promise. I do not wish to appear in this message to 
speak lightly of his walk of faith, but I want this 
audience to see that an absolute surrender to the 
will of God is necessary to a life of blessing and use- 
fulness. Here we have the Abrahamic Covenant, the 
most gracious of all God's promises, "I will make 
of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make 
thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing; and I 
will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that 
curseth thee: and in thee shall all the families of 
the earth be blessed. ' ' What a promise ! We do well 
to remember that all of God 's promises are given upon 
conditions, sometimes expressed, if not, always clearly 
implied. Here the conditions were named. They were 



136 GREAT THINGS OF THE BIBLE 

four in number: First, ''Get thee out of thy coun- 
try;'' Second, "And from thy kindred;" Third, "And 
from thy father's house;" Fourth, "Unto a land that 
I will show thee. ' ' There could be no misunderstand- 
ing God, yet Abraham, like so many of us, lost many 
golden years expecting God to bless a half surren- 
dered life. 

I think of Abraham as being a young man thirty 
years of age when God called him from Chaldea to 
Canaan. The Bible record is silent as to his age at 
the time of his call. I place him at the age of thirty 
for the following reasons : It was at the age of thirty 
that the priest entered upon the duties of his holy 
office; it was at the age of thirty that Jesus entered 
upon the work of redeeming the world; since God 
was to make of Abraham a great nation, the call would 
be given him in early manhood; God always calls in 
the morning of life that He may have the unbroken 
service of the years of maturity. If I am right in 
placing his age at thirty at the time of his call, I 
want you to see the wasted years before the promise 
was fulfilled. 

Picture Abraham in Cheldea in love with Sarah 
and hear him tell her of the great promises God has 
made them. I hear Sarah asking upon what condi- 
tions the promises were made and he names them in 
the order given. She then asks, "Why does God want 
us to leave Ur of Chaldea? Is not this as good a 
country as there is in the world? Why leave our 
kindred and go among strangers? Surely if God 



THE HALF WAY HOUSE 137 

purposes doing great things for us, He can bless us 
here as well as elsewhere. ' ' God did not tell Abraham 
why He wanted him to leave Chaldea, nor does He 
always tell us why He would have us do certain things, 
but this we know that His command has ever been, 
"Come out from among them and be ye separate. " 
I do not know how long Abraham remained in his 
country before he complied with the first of the four 
conditions upon which the promises were given, but 
if I am right in believing that he was called at the 
age of thirty, he must have remained there for twenty 
years and they were certainly not the happiest years 
of his life. No man is happy when he is trying to 
live a compromised life before God. Poor Abra- 
ham! How his heart must have hungered for the 
promised blessing. The Lord was to make of him a 
great nation, he is now fifty years of age and not a 
child has been given. He would have lived and died 
a childless man had he not moved out of Chaldea in 
obedience to God. 

Many a church is barren for the reason that she 
has not separated herself unto God. You ask me, 
"Why does not the world join the church ?" My 
reply is for the reason that the church has joined the 
world. It is the problem of the twentieth century to 
get the church out of Chaldea into Canaan. The 
solving of this problem would result in the evangel- 
izing of the world. "How many dead have you in 
this cemetery?" asked a stranger of a sexton of a 
country churchyard. "Two hundred forty-seven," 



138 GREAT THINGS OF THE BIBLE 

was the reply, "two hundred forty-six people and one 
church." That church is dead when the individuals 
of which it is composed have not the "Life more 
abundant" which Jesus came to give. A colored 
minister, while conducting the funeral service of one 
of his parishioners, said, "Brudders, dis har corpse 
am been a membah ob dis church fo 7 twenty years." 
What can the church do with a membership lusting 
after the flesh pots of Egypt and in league with idol 
worshipping Chaldea ? God told Abraham to go from 
his country and kindred, but he went not. He calls 
us from all sin and selfishness, and if we do not turn 
to Hjim in an unconditional surrender, we, like Abra- 
ham, will have no blessing. Some have been church 
members for twenty years and are no nearer Heaven 
than when they started. Oh, that God may help you 
get out of Chaldea tonight. 

II. In Haran with Terah. 

After this loss of twenty years Abraham must have 
gone to Sarah and said, "It is evident that God will 
not bless us until we obey Him. We must leave our 
country and kindred." At this, Terah, the good old 
father, likely said, "Abraham, I see you are intent 
on obeying your God. It must be very hard for you 
to give up so much. I will make it as easy for you 
as I can, come now, and I will take you on the jour- 
ney." The record is, "Terah took Abraham, his son, 
and Lot and Sarah, and went forth with them from 
Ur of the Chaldees, to go into the land of Canaan." 



THE HALFWAY HOUSE 139 

This would make it easier for Abraham. But God 
did not tell him to be taken out of his country. There 
is a vast difference between going and being taken. I 
have been to jail a few times, but I have never been 
taken to jail yet. "Terah took." They had their 
eyes fixed on the right goal, they set out for Canaan, 
but think you they got there with an idol worshipper 
at the lines? How sad, how sad! "They came to 
Haran and dwelt there.' ' 

"We have gone far enough," perhaps Sarah said. 
"Have we not obeyed the Lord? We are from our 
country and kindred and surely there is no better 
place than this fertile valley. Father is very old and 
the journey has been hard on him. Why need we 
go farther ? ' ' They had been long on the journey for 
you must remember that they had no Ford. So they 
dwelt, not camped, but dwelt in Haran. How long, 
I do not know, but I place their stay there at twenty- 
five years. They remained until Terah died. "The 
days of Terah were two hundred and five years, and 
Terah died in Hlaran." Certainly so. The worldling 
whose heart hungers for the flesh pots of Egypt always 
dies at the halfway house. It took a death to move 
Abraham out of Haran. There are many in our 
churches living at the halfway house who will never 
move on into Canaan until the Messenger of Death 
visits their homes. It is surprising how a funeral some- 
times helps a church. Twenty-five years in Haran 
and no blessing from the Lord. May we learn the 



140 GREAT THINGS OF THE BIBLE 

impossibility of coaxing God to bless us when we have 
not surrendered without reserve unto Him. 

These fruitless years at Haran remind me of the 
story told of four men who started one evening in a 
boat to a town twelve miles up the river. They had 
a keg of liquor with them and when the journey was 
about half completed they tied the boat to a log and 
transferred the beer from the keg to themselves until 
the keg was empty and they were full. Then they 
took up their oars and began rowing. In their drunken 
condition they pulled their oars until morning only 
to find they were still at the same place tied to the 
log. Poor back-slidden church-member, hitched by the 
chain of habit to some log of sin, it is a fruitless pre- 
tense you make at religion. Cut the chain that holds 
you and move out to where God can bless you. 

Abraham built no altar in Haran. Is your family 
altar down? Have you ceased praying? Do you no 
longer delight in God's Book? Have you lost interest 
in the services of God's house? Have you no hunger 
for the fellowship of saints? Have you been taking 
God's name in vain ? Are you conformed to the things 
of this world? Have you no passion for lost souls? 
Brother, sister, you are dwelling in Haran at the 
halfway house. Will you not move into Canaan to- 
night. In one of our campaigns some years ago, an 
old soldier arose in one of the afternoon services and 
said, "I want to offer a testimony. Mr. Newlin's ser- 
mon the other night on the "Halfway House" brought 
me to see where I have been living for thirty-five years. 



THE HALFWAY HOUSE 141 

I have passed as a Christian all this time, but I was 
never in Canaan until that night when I made an 
unconditional surrender to God. Now I am happy 
and I have erected a family altar, too, and have prom- 
ised God to keep the fires burning on that altar the 
few more days I have to live." It was not long, for 
in less than a year he was called to Heaven. Some of 
you are within less than a year of the Judgment and 
you cannot afford to longer put off the full surrender 
of your lives to God. 

III. In Canaan with Lot. 

After the death and burial of Terah we read that 
"Abraham took Sarah his wife and Lot, and the souls 
that they had gotten in Haran: and they went forth 
to go into the land of Canaan." Abraham has the 
reins now and is going, rather than being taken, as 
when Terah led the way. Here we are told that 
"Abraham was seventy-five years old when he de- 
parted out of Haran." If he was but thirty when 
God called him, forty-five golden years have been lost. 
They now journey toward the same place to which 
they started twenty-five years before. Did they reach 
Canaan this time with the new driver? Yes, "They 
went forth to go into the Land of Canaan, and into 
the land of Canaan they came." 

Abraham must have been a happy man on that 
morning when he saw the sun rising over the eastern 
hills in Canaan. Never happier since the morning of 
his marriage. He must have turned to Sarah and said, 



142 GREAT THINGS OF THE BIBLE 

"Now we have complied with the four conditions upon 
which the promise of God was given, we can now 
expect the blessing. We have lost forty-five years by 
not coming to this place but now that we are here I 
believe God will keep His promise." Did the Lord's 
blessing come upon Abraham at this time ? No, Abra- 
ham was twenty years in Canaan before he heard the 
laughter of the child of promise in his tent. Why did 
not God keep His word? There was reason enough 
for the delay as we shall presently see. If you have 
not received the pardon from sin as promised of the 
Lord, it is not God's fault, you have failed to meet 
the conditions upon which that promise was given. 
You need not expect God to bless you until you have 
made a complete surrender to His will. Abraham has 
something yet to do before he receives the blessing. 

The following illustration will help us to see how 
indispensable it is that we go all the way in our sur- 
render to God. Thirty patriotic citizens took the 
elevator in the open shaft of the Washington Monu- 
ment to be lifted to the top of that magnificent piece 
of masonry standing, five hundred and fifty-five feet 
high, in memory of the Father of his Country. Seven 
minutes and a half are required to make the ascent 
in that elevator. Up, up, up, they were lifted until 
it seemed they were Hearing the sun. Presently one 
said, ' ' Now we are at the top, I feel the elevator stop- 
ping. ' ' Then in large figures on the stone before their 
eyes was this intelligence, "250 Feet." The elevator 
continued to arise until they reached the top, where 



THE HALFWAY HOUSE 143 

they had a commanding view of the Nation's Capital 
in every direction of the compass. But they had no 
more of that view at a height of four hundred and 
seventy-five feet than they had at one hundred feet. 
They could see nothing but the granite walls about 
them. The ascent of that monument is like going up 
a chimney, you see nothing until you reach the top. 

When one pretends to seek God there is little use 
starting unless he intends to go all the way. Had 
not God said, "Get thee from thy kindred"? Was 
not Lot a relative of Abraham? Why need he expect 
God to fulfill the promise until he separates from Lot ? 
Not the first installment of the seven-fold promise was 
given until that separation took place. Famine came 
and Abraham had to journey into Egypt to prevent 
starvation. We see him later at almost one hundred 
years of age back in Canaan, but the child of promise 
has not yet been given. Brother, do you see this truth ? 
I know I am hewing to the line, but when you are 
dealing with God you will find He always hews to the 
line. There is no use trying to claim the promise 
until there has been a surrender without reserve. 

I presume some of you are saying, 'He is preaching 
the second blessing. " If it is any relief to you I will 
tell you I am not, I am preaching the first blessing. 
You must know that Abraham has not been blessed 
yet. Do you ask whether I believe in the second bless- 
ing? Yes, I certainly do. But I believe it is impos- 
sible to get the second blessing before you have re- 
ceived the first. I believe in the second blessing and in 



144 GREAT THINGS OF THE BIBLE 

the third blessing and in innumerable and continuous 
blessings. But if the Scripture before us teaches any 
One lesson it is that no blessing will come until we 
fully obey God. Lot is a type of the world and as 
long as Abraham had Lot with him he was as com- 
pletely deprived of the promised blessing as are world- 
ly church members who are lovers of pleasure more 
than lovers of God. There are churches praying for 
an "ingathering" when what they need is an "out- 
going." Oh, lukewarm, backslidden church member, 
separate yourself from the world and see what God 
will do for you! 

IY. In Canaan with God. 

In the thirteenth chapter of Genesis we have the 
separation of Abraham and Lot, a story with which 
we are quite familiar. At the fourteenth verse we 
read, "The Lord said unto Abraham, after that Lot 
was separated from him — " Everything hinges upon 
those words, "After that Lot was separated from 
him." There is no record that God had spoken to 
Abraham since He had said, "Get thee out of thy 
country;" he was twenty years in doing that; "And 
from thy father's house;" he was another twenty-five 
years in doing that; "Unto a land that I will show 
thee;" this he did after the death of his father. But 
God also said, ' ' And from thy kindred. ' ' That meant 
Lot as surely as it meant any other relative. Now 
that Abraham has separated from Lot the Lord comes 
to him reaffirming the promise, "Lift up now thine 



THE HALFWAY HOUSE 145 

eyes, and look from the place where thou art north- 
ward, and southward, and eastward, and westward: 
for all the land which thou seest, to thee will I give 
it, and to thy seed for ever." The Lord had been 
waiting sixty-five years for Abraham to get where 
He could bless him, and at last the glad hour had 
come. 

Abraham must have said, ' ' Stop Lord, why promise 
this land to my seed, when I am one hundred years 
old and have no children?" God replies, "I will 
make thy seed as the dust of the earth: so that if a 
man can number the dust of the earth, then shall thy 
seed also be numbered. Arise, walk through the land, 
for I will give it unto thee." As soon as Abraham 
had fully obeyed the Lord, the promise is repeated 
unto him. We can know that he is in full communion 
with the Lord now for he ' ' Built an altar there unto 
the Lord." He had no altar in Chaldea with his 
kindred, he had no altar in Haran with Lot, but he 
soon erected an altar when he was alone with God. 
Every detail of the covenant was fulfilled just as 
soon as Abraham removed everything that was between 
himself and the Lord. God is no respecter of persons, 
He will bless you as abundantly as He blessed Abra- 
ham just as soon as you seek Him with an undivided 
heart. 

In one of our campaigns a few years ago I stepped 
down one of the aisles, during the invitation service, 
and spoke to a man who was seated with his family 
about the center of the tabernacle. I asked him if 



146 GREAT THINGS OF THE BIBLE 

he were a Christian man, and he replied that he was 
just about a half Christian. I then asked how long 
he had been a half Christian, and he said, "I have 
been a half Christian for fifteen years. ' ' I then asked 
if being a half Christian satisfied his heart and con- 
science. To this he replied, "No, sir; my heart is 
hungry and my conscience calls for more than half 
Christianity." My next question was, "Do you be- 
lieve God is pleased with a half Christian?" He 
answered, ' ' I know God must be displeased and Jesus 
must be grieved with my half Christianity." I then 
said, "Brother, you need not answer this question, 
but I want you to think about it. Do you not believe 
that being just half a Christian makes one about the 
most effective agent the devil has in his service?" 
I turned to walk away, but he said, "I am ready to 
answer that. I must answer, God being witness, that 
I believe that a father who lives a half Christianity 
before his children is one of the most effective agents 
of the devil. ' ' Then I said, " If I had a religion that 
neither satisfied my heart nor stilled my conscience, 
that grieved Jesus and displeased God, and made me 
an effective agent of the devil, I certainly would not 
sleep with it over night. ' ' 

Two or three nights later that man came forward 
and took my hand and said, ' ' Mr. Newlin, I came after 
the other half. ' ' I knew what the man meant and said, 
"God bless you, brother, the Lord will receive you as 
graciously as the father in Luke fifteen welcomed his 
returning son." In a few minutes his wife and chil- 



THE HALFWAY HOUSE 147 

dren were at his side and the whole family were 
made happy by a definite surrender to the Lord. At 
the close of the service I said, " Brother, you act as 
if you received what you eame after. Does the half 
Christianity which you had and the half you received 
of the Lord tonight make a perfect whole V He 
smiled through his tears and replied, "I saw that the 
Lord's perfect half would not fit in with the dried 
up, mildewed, no-account half I had, so I just threw 
my good-for-nothing half away and told God I was 
through with this half business and asked Him to 
give me the whole thing. I want you to know I have 
no patched up affair. I have the Lord's perfect whole, 
and am resolved to live it to my dying day. ' ' I have 
seen many do just as that man did, and there are 
thousands of others who have been trying to pass as 
Christians for years that should do likewise. If this 
city is to have a gracious revival it must have its 
beginning with those in the church who are not in 
fellowship with the Lord. May the Lord help those 
of you who are at the halfway house to move on into 
Canaan where you may walk and talk with Jesus! 



X 

THE STANDARD OF A CHRISTIAN 



tt{ Be that walheth righteously, and speaketh uprightly: he 
that despiseth the gam of oppressions, that shaketh his hands 
from holding of bribes, that stoppeth his ears from hearing of 
blood, and shutteth his eyes from seeing evil; he shall dwell on 
high."— Isa. 33: 15. 



Every Christian is a sermon in shoes, a walking 
advertisement of the church. Is it any wonder that 
the truth preached from the pulpit has so little effect, 
when some of the membership of the church by their 
daily lives are an open denial of the cleansing power 
of the blood of Jesus ? What reason have the unsaved 
to expect that religion will do more for them than it 
has done for you? If there was reason for Jesus 
saying to Peter, "When thou art converted strengthen 
thy brethren, ' ' in this era of social service it is highly 
essential that one's religious profession bears marks of 
brotherly helpfulness. Christians are like panes of 
window glass; if imperfect they attract attention to 
themselves and obscure the vision; if perfect, others 
see Jesus through them. Or, changing the figure. 
Christians are like pianos ; grand, square and upright 
and not worth a picayune unless they are in tune. 
In this text we are given three couplets setting forth 
the Old Testament standard of a godly man. 
I. His Walk and Talk. 

When one becomes a Christian this new life affects 
every part of him. It operates upon his actions, 

148 



THE STANDARD OF A CHRISTIAN 149 

thoughts, and wishes, and determines his course in 
private and public life. One of the first evidences of 
a true belief in God is a righteous walk. Where for- 
merly six feet of sidewalk would not accommodate 
his number nines and he frequently collided with a 
lamp post, he now walks in the straight and narrow 
way that leads to glory. There are hypocrites who 
think they can drink a certain beverage on tap in their 
ice boxes and make the world believe they are Chris- 
tians. Two drinks of that stuff would make a jack 
rabbit spit in a bulldog's eye. The man who drinks 
it spits in God's face. If the path in which 
you are walking leads to the opera instead of the 
sanctuary, to the Sunday ball game instead of the 
services of the church; if it takes you to the brothel 
instead of the Bible; if it leads to family discord 
instead of family devotion, you are not walking right- 
eously but are coming short of God's standard of a 
Christian. 

A son learns to keep step with his father and walks 
like him, in reality he is like him, for one's walk is 
a revelation of his character. "Look, papa," said 
a little boy who was following his father after a fresh 
fall of snow, "I am stepping right in your tracks." 
Father, what kind of a man will your son become if 
he follows in your footsteps? Do you keep the path 
open between your home and the house of God, or 
have you allowed it to grow shut with hazelbrushf 
If you are not walking right you are no Christian. 
Some took a stand for the Lord forty years ago and 



150 GREAT THINGS OF THE BIBLE 

are still standing. The text does not say, "He that 
standeth righteously. " It does not say, "He that 
sitteth righteously, ' ' nor does it say, "He that lieth 
righteously, ' ■ but it does say, ' ' He that walketh right- 
eously. ' ' 

There is much in the Bible as to how we should 
walk. Paul mentions seven walks in his Ephesian 
letter. We are told how Enoch walked with God and 
the journey ended in Heaven. When Jesus walked 
with the two on their way to Emmaus their sorrow 
was turned into joy. We are exhorted to walk not 
in the counsel of the ungodly nor to go in the way 
of Cain, but to follow in the path of the just, which 
is "as the shining light that shineth more and more 
unto the perfect day." If your walk is wrong, you 
are wrong, and the only way for you to get right 
is to meet Jesus at the Cross. 

No description of man's character is complete which 
omits his speech. A man who lies, or who is obscene 
or profane in his talk, is a bad man. A man whose 
words are arrogant and boastful, cruel and slanderous 
or deceptive and impure, is no child of God. The 
grace of God very speedily sweetens one's tongue. If 
the tongue be set on fire of hell the heart is not on 
fire of Heaven. The doctor says, "Let me see your 
tongue," and he judges the symptoms of health or 
disease thereby. There is no better test of inward 
character than the use one makes of his tongue. "By 
thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words 



THE STANDARD OF A CHRISTIAN 151 

thou shalt be condemned." "Out of thine own mouth 
will I judge thee," is the pronuneiamento of God. 

A gossiping mouth is the devil's mailbag and there 
are some who make special deliveries. A gossiping 
woman entered a newspaper office to exchange news 
items with the editor. As she leaned against the 
counter a slip of paper on which was some paste 
stuck to her back. From here she went down the 
street, in and out of the stores, creating a hearty laugh 
as she passed. Upon reaching home she asked her 
husband what was on her back that ought not to be 
there. "I see nothing inappropriate," was his reply, 
and then he had his laugh. The slip of paper on her 
back had in large type the words, "Daily News." 
Every city has a few feminine "dailies" whose fa- 
vorite song is, ' ' Oh, for a thousand tongues to sing. ' ' 
They have slandered everybody in a radius of ten 
miles with the one tongue they have, what would 
they do with a thousand such tongues? Gossipers 
are the social sewerage system of a community. I 
suppose you have some masculine gossipers here also 
who do all their thinking between the chin and the 
nose, if so, you can testify to the worthlessness of 
their religion. 

We have a false philosophy in America. We agree 
that man's first and highest right is life. The last 
thing we ask a man to give as a price for crime is to 
forfeit his life. We agree that man's second right 
is liberty. The second highest price we ask a man 
to pay for erime is to forfeit his freedom. When we 



152 GREAT THINGS OF THE BIBLE 

approach man's third moral right we come to the 
parting of the ways. Nine-tenths of the people would 
affirm that a man's third moral right is ownership; 
that he is not only entitled to life and liberty, bnt 
that he is also to have that which he can call his own, 
which materially represents his industry and economy. 
I affirm that ownership is the fourth rather than the 
yj third moral right of man. Our fathers in drafting 
the Declaration of Independence gave certain unalien- 
able rights, as "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Hap- 
piness. ' ' Did they mean by the pursuit of happiness 
the right of ownership only? Certainly not. We 
agree with Shakespeare: , 



' Who steals my purse, steals trash, 
But he that filches from me my good name 
Boos me of that which not enriches him, 
And makes me poor indeed.'' 



This same truth is expressed by Solomon in these 
words, "A good name is rather to be chosen than 
great riches." Following life and liberty man's next 
moral right is to have a just reputation. The man 
or woman who deliberately goes out and circulates 
a false report that reflects upon your character is a 
greater thief than the man who steals a horse from 
your barn. If one's horse is stolen he can replace 
it by another, but when robbed of his good name he 
has lost the whole of his capital. Slander and gossip 
are the devil's big guns. Hie seldom takes the life 
of God's servants or deprives them of liberty, as in 



THE STANDARD OF A CHRISTIAN 153 

former days, but his chief battering ram now is a 
lying tongue. The tale bearer is worse than a thief. 

Free speech is a precious right, and so is free 
action, but the tongue has no more right than the 
hand to abuse its freedom. It is loose at one end 
and can swing every way, but it is fastened at the 
other end and that makes you responsible for the 
way it moves. Nature indicates that the tongue is 
a dangerous thing by setting it in a vault provided 
with double shutters, first by a barricade of teeth 
and then the door of the lips. In the epistle by James 
we read, ' ' If any man offend not in word, the same 
is a perfect man." Paul calls these gossip peddlers 
"Whisperers," and Solomon says, "A whisperer sep- 
arateth chief friends." They always have some secret 
which they charge you not to tell, for the reason they 
want to be first with it to the ears of others. One 
of these whisperers was charged with not being able 
to keep a secret, and he replied, "I could keep it, 
but the person I told could not." If you belong to 
the "whispering club" do not call yourself a man 
much less a Christian. If you do not walk right 
and talk right you are no child of Grace. May the 
Lord convict all backslidden, gossiping church mem- 
bers of their sin and lead them to repentance. 

II. His Heart and Hands. 

This standard of a Christian would be incomplete 
if it had no definite word upon the question of gain. 
God has no displeasure in honestly gained riches, or 



154 GREAT THINGS OF THE BIBLE 

He would have denounced the wealth of Abraham and 
Solomon who accumulated enormous fortunes. He 
places a premium on industry and commends one for 
legitimate gain; this is proven by the teaching in 
the parables of the pounds and talents. He is more 
displeased with one dirty dime than with the wealth 
of the Yanderbilts if it be untainted. You may be 
a church member and rent your property for a saloon 
or a house of prostitution, but you are no Christian. 
All gain resulting from such forms of vice is gain 
of oppressions and meets with God's disapproval. 
When it comes to receiving profit from questionable 
sources some have no higher sense of honor than a 
fox in a hen-house. The man who will in any way 
become partner to a business that dishonors God and 
degrades man puts his character and soul on the block 
and sells out to the devil. This is an age when some 
allow greed to choke conscience while by trickery they 
make money by the hods full and try to buy a ticket 
to Heaven on the installment plan. 

In his greed for gain man has come to live on the 
land like the fish live in the sea, the big ones subsist 
upon the little ones. Some construe personal liberty 
to mean personal license, but this text prohibits that 
interpretation. If you were the only man in the city 
you could drive your auto through the streets at forty 
miles per hour, or could build a slaughter house in 
the park and a fertilizer factory in your front yard, 
but with several thousand other people here your lib- 
erty ends where their rights begin, and your gains 



THE STANDARD OF A CHRISTIAN 155 

must eease where it means oppression to others. When 
a man goes to your chicken house and carries home 
an old rooster, he is called a ' ' dirty thief ' ' and is hus- 
tled to jail; when he steals a bank or by trickery 
wrenches two hundred thousand dollars from the pock- 
ets of the common people, we read in the papers that 
he has gone abroad for his health after "confiscating" 
funds. Why wink at such a crime? God is no re- 
specter of persons. Instead of being in Europe that 
rascal ought to be in the penitentiary. 

At the close of the Civil War, stockholders of the 
infamous octopus of the devil, the Louisiana Lottery, 
approached General Robert E. Lee and tendered him 
the presidency of the company. Lee was without posi- 
tion, property, or income, but regarded this offer as 
the gain of oppression, and on the ground that he did 
not understand the business and did not care to learn 
it, he modestly declined the proposition. They then 
said, "No experience is needed. We know how to 
run the business. We want you as president for the 
influence of your name, remember the salary is twen- 
ty-five thousand dollars a year." Lee arose and but- 
toned his old gray coat over his manly breast and 
replied, "Gentlemen, my home at Arlington Heights 
is gone, I am a poor man and my people are in need. 
My name and influence are all I have left and they 
are not for sale at any price." Rather than receive 
the gain of oppression, he taught the young men of 
the south the principles of right living at a salary 
of one thousand dollars a year. 



156 GREAT THINGS OF THE BIBLE 

The hands join the heart in offering or receiving 
bribes. Some think of bribery as being a new sin 
which had its origin in the twentieth century. If such 
ones would only read the Bible they would find it a 
decidedly up-to-date Book. Samuel says of his two 
sons who became judges, "They took bribes and per- 
verted judgment." David says of some of his pur- 
suers, "Their right hand is full of bribes." Amos 
says of some men in his day, "They take a bribe and 
turn aside the poor in the gate." In the book of 
Job we have the crushing bolts of God's indignation, 
declaring, "Fire shall consume the tabernacle of bri- 
bery." This is one of the devil's most effective tempt- 
ations. He tried it on Jesus, saying, ' ' All these things 
will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship 
me." But Jesus did not yield to that temptation. 
Paul also faced the temptation of giving a bribe. For 
two full years he was held a prisoner by Felix and it 
is expressly said, "He hoped also that money should 
have been given of Paul, that he might loose him: 
wherefore he sent for him the oftener, and communed 
with him. " But rather than stain his hands by offer- 
ing a bribe Paul remained in prison. 

Bribery is a sin that sticks, but a Christian will 
shake it off with indignation. He will neither take 
what is offered nor keep what is given. Men are 
offered advantages if they will wink at evil or frown 
on good. Hb whose hands clutch the reward of a 
sinful trade, or a dishonest transaction, he who re- 
ceives gain by countenancing wrong, or forbearing 



THE STANDARD OF A CHRISTIAN 157 

from right, does not measure up to God's standard of 
a Christian. Only clean hands go with a pure heart. 
The blackest chapter in English, Irish, French, Ger- 
man and American politics is the chapter of bribery. 
Yielding to this temptation Benedict Arnold sold the 
fort in the Highlands for thirty-one thousand five 
hundred seventy-five dollars; Gorgey betrayed Hun- 
gary; Ahithophel forsook David and Judas kissed 
Christ. It is said, "Every man. has his price;' this 
I do not believe but there are some who hold bargain 
sales. When one sees so many of the illustrious going 
down under this temptation, he is reminded of the 
red dragon spoken of in Revelation with seven heads 
and ten horns and seven crowns drawing the third 
part of the stars of heaven down after him. May 
the Spirit of God so prick the consciences of men as 
to lead them to place manhood above money, and in 
their business despise the gain of oppression and 
shake their hands from holding of bribes. 

III. 'His Ears and Eyes. 

The righteous man "stoppeth his ears from hearing 
of blood." He is deaf to news which would never 
come from a good man's lips. Half that was said as 
to the use of the tongue will apply here for he that 
listens to the defaming of a good man, with such 
relish as to invite the story at length, is partner to 
the crime. Profanity and vulgarity are twin brothers 
and are always employed by satan in haunts of vice 
and crime. He sends brazen ambassadors to deliver 



158 GREAT THINGS OF THE BIBLE 

their poisonous message in the ears of the innocent 
and pure, but against their story of blood Christian 
men stop their ears. Hearing has as much to do with 
the health of the soul as food has with the body. The 
Christian places an embargo upon unclean conversa- 
tion and corrupt literature. If an angel from Heaven 
were to come down to your parlors and read the novels 
that some of you church members have been reading, 
and sing the trashy songs that some of you have been 
singing, and listen to the suggestive, smutty stories to 
which some of you have listened with relish, he would 
never get back to sing again in Gabriel's choir. Neither 
will you sing in that choir if you do not burn up 
some of your books and songs and close your ears to 
ill savored stories and repent of your sin. When 
you buy a cheap novel you get ten cents worth of 
unadultered perdition. 

The reason some people hear so much is because 
their ready hearing invited the extra chapters. It is 
not only our duty to close our ears against speech that 
is evil, but as far as possible to close the lips of all 
whose message would bring a blush to the cheek of 
an angel. It takes a good listener to add zest to a 
story. We would do well to adopt the covenant of 
the Bethany Girls, which reads, "I will not have ears 
for that evil report about another, which I would 
grieve to have another hearken to about myself. I 
will not have a tongue for that frailty of another, 
which, if my own, I would crave to have sheltered in 
kindly silence. I will not have eyes for that error 



THE STANDARD OF A CHRISTIAN 159 

of another, which I would long to have go unnoted 
in myself. ' ' I like that pledge because it breathes 
the spirit of Jesus. 

The description of a Christian given in the text 
begins with his feet and concludes with his eyes and 
includes the entire man. "He that shutteth his eyes 
from seeing evil shall dwell on high." A Christian 
takes no pleasure in the most brilliant displays of 
folly. He does not seek his amusement in gazing upon 
denizened wickedness; he will see only that which 
is clean and helpful to his best good. Through the 
eye gate the devil is making a big catch these days 
with gaudy apparel, suggestive pictures and lewd per- 
formances. He has just about captured everything 
in the amusement world from the moving picture 
and matinee to the vaudeville and grand opera. The 
next time you start to the ball room, the theater or 
any other form of questionable amusement push your 
minister in thirty minutes ahead of you and see how 
he looks before you enter. Before you put beer in 
your ice box or the euchre deck in your parlor, put 
them in the home of your pastor and see how he 
looks mixed up with the devil's side dishes. Hfe has 
as much right to run to a "seventh commandment" 
show and to the dance and to have nude pictures in 
his home as you have, but he would be as good-for- 
nothing as you are if he did. God expects everyone 
to be as good as he wants his pastor to be. If a 
minister were to run to everything that some church 
members do he would have to leave town within twen- 



J 



160 GREAT THINGS OF THE BIBLE 

ty-three days. There are those who flock to the 
theater to see some actress perform who hasn't clothes 
enough to dress a ten-pound baby and call it "high 
art." My conception of art is something different than 
going to the theater and looking through a pair of 
opera glasses at the form of some degenerate. 

If my rebuke of sin seems shocking your life has 
been more so. I do not believe in labeling a bottle 
of rank poison ' ' essence of peppermint. ' ' So long as 
people sin in English I do not propose to reprove them 
in Latin. Some say, "Of course, we want you to 
preach the truth, but can 't you put on the soft pedals, 
so it won't hurt so much?" That is the trouble now, 
too many have gone into the soft-pedal business when 
they go out to fight the devil. We must fight the devil 
like the man who fought a bulldog with the tangs 
of a pitchfork. The owner of the dog insisted that he 
should have used the other end of the fork if he must 
come at his dog with that kind of a weapon. The man 
replied, "I will use the other end of the fork when 
he comes at me with the other end. ' ' I was once asked 
to preach a very pleasing sermon, the request came 
from a woman who said, "My husband has not been 
to church for six years because the last time he went 
the minister said something that hurt his feelings, he 
has consented to come with me tonight and I am so 
afraid he will get his feelings hurt again. ' ' How is 
a man who has his feelings stuck out like porcupine 
quills to keep them from getting hurt when you prod 
sin hard enough to arouse the man who is elephant^ 



THE STANDARD OF A CHRISTIAN 161 

like in insensitiveness ? Some people are so non-com- 
bustible you can build a fire around them and they 
will not explode, while you dare not go within ten 
feet of others with a lighted match or they will take 
fire like a powder mill. The man who howls like a 
hit pup when I preach the truth assures me that I 
have called his number. A sound horse will always 
stand currying, but if it has the spavin, it will stamp 
and kick and bite when you scratch the sore. I am 
here to arouse the backslidden church member and 
get him back into favor with God. 

For evidence that many church members and some 
ministers do not measure up to God's standard of a 
Christian by shutting their eyes from seeing evil, we 
only need turn to the Iroquois Theater fire in Chicago. 
Church members by the hundred were witnessing a 
play and almost the entire membership of one Chicago 
church met death in that fire trap because their eyes 
were open to evil. The scene being acted out when 
the fire occurred was enough to make a harlot blush. 
The advertisements of that play remained on the bill- 
boards of the city for several days and the pictured 
play showed a group of fifty or more women nearly 
nude. With eyes open to seeing evil six hundred souls, 
among them many church members and a few pastors, 
went into eternity. I venture there are some in this 
audience who have had eyes open to evils that you 
would not want to be caught witnessing when Gabriel 
comes to summon you to meet God. I can no more 
think of a spiritually minded person running to the 



162 GREAT THINGS OF THE BIBLE 

theater or dance than I can think of the Prodigal 
Son asking for a dish of husks from the swine trough 
at his father's banquet. 

If I had a blackboard here and were to draw upon 
it a large cross and were to write upon the left of 
that cross the things which belong to the unregenerate 
life and upon the right the things which belong to 
the spiritual life, there would be no doubt in any mind 
but that upon the left should be written the "world," 
the "flesh" and the "devil." All would be equally 
certain that upon the right should be written the 
"church," spirituality" and "Jesus." Now I ask 
you upon which side of that cross belong the theater, 
the dance, cards and all questionable amusements? 
Your better judgment tells you that they belong upon 
the left side for they have nothing in common with 
the Christian life. I want every wife who will say, 
"My husband shall have a more consecrated wife," 
every mother who will say, "God helping me, my 
children shall have a better mother," every man who 
will say, ' ' My wife and children and mother shall have 
a better husband and father and son," and every 
church member who will say, "God helping me, I 
will live up to the standard of a true Christian," to 
arise. If you are as good as you want to be keep 
your seats, the devil will take you as you are, if he 
doesn't like some of your meanness. May God help 
you to turn from all things that hinder your Christian 
influence and stifle your Spiritual growth that you 
may attain the ' ' Stature of the fullness of Christ. " 



XI 

CHRISTIAN POISE 

"Be thou strong therefore, and shew thyself a num. 1 * 

—I Kings 2:2 

Every person has a favorite study. The astronomer 
lives in the heavens, his converse is with the stars. 
The geologist descends to examine the rocks and strata, 
his thoughts are of the primitive formations. The 
botanist, fragrant with flowers, comes with a port- 
folio full of autographs of the Creator. The ma- 
chinist is all absorbed with the delicate mechanism of 
his inventions. The statesman is devoted to the indus- 
trial and economic problems in government. But one 
of the most interesting and profitable studies is that 
of character. Here the student of nature will find the 
star of hope in the thought firmament, the rock of 
faith in the spirit land and the flower of love in the 
heart garden. No machinist ever saw an engine hitched 
to a moving train, housed beneath the hood of an auto 
or imprisoned in the intricate parts of an aeroplane 
that equaled in fervor and power the throb of a human 
heart. The governing of a republic is not a greater 
task than the ruling of the heart realm, for "He that 
ruleth his spirit is better than he that taketh a city." 
The dethroning of satan and the enthroning of Jesus 
is employment worthy of the most gifted intellect. 

We have before us the last admonition of a father 

163 



164 GREAT THINGS OF THE BIBLE 

to his son; an exhortation breathing parental solici- 
tude for the character and poise of the forthcoming 
king. "Now the days of David drew nigh that he 
should die; and he charged Solomon, his son, saying, 
1 ' 1 go the way of all the earth : be thou strong, there- 
fore, and show thyself a man; and keep the charge 
of the Lord thy God to walk in His ways: that the 
Lord may continue His word which He spoke con- 
cerning me, If thy children take heed to their way, 
to walk before me in truth with all their heart and 
with all their soul, there shall not fail thee, said He, 
a man on the throne of Israel. ' ' A man should every- 
where and at all times manifest Christian poise, espe- 
cially if he is to be a leader of men, a guardian of 
state. It is a most reasonable thing to expect men to 
be manly, but we so often fall short of the kingly 
grace that God's repeated call is: "Show thyself a 
man." I have in mind five classes of men which may 
be best understood by studying them together with 
five rivers possessing similar characteristics. 

I. The Rushing Jordan. 

Take the familiar river of the Bible, the Jordan, 
and see how aptly it illustrates a class of men. This 
stream has its source in the snow-capped hills of Mount 
Hermon, and from this constant supply of fresh wa- 
ters soon becomes a river of considerable volume for 
its length. Had these waters chosen to flow eastwrad 
they would soon have lost their identity in the great 
Euphrates. Their flow northward was made impos- 






CHRISTIAN POISE 165 

sible by the Lebanon Mountains, and to have chosen 
a westward course would soon have lost them in the 
Mediterranean. They choose a southward course and 
flow through gorge and over cataract, onward, swiftly 
onward, in their own peculiar channel, toward a hasty 
and unparalleled goal. After dancing down the moun- 
tain until sea level is reached they come to a sudden 
halt at the little lake of Merom. Discontent soon bids 
them move onward. Leaping through rapids and 
dashing over rocky shoals until churned into foam 
they again pause in the waters of Galilee, more than 
six hundred feet below the level of the sea. They are 
here encircled by shores honored and made sacred 
by the presence of the Galilean fishermen, including 
Him who came to teach us how to become fishers of 
men. Once more they break forth with rapid flow 
and dash along their crooked course, dancing down, 
down to thirteen hundred feet below sea-level, where 
they reach the end toward which they made undue 
haste. What a descent from Hermon's summit to the 
Dead Sea, the deepest depression in all the world! 

How like the Jordan river is the course of some men. 
We see them on the lofty hills of youth, facing excep- 
tional possibilities. The spirit of the age is to choose 
a short road to reach a given end, regardless of the 
rapid dash which may thus be necessitated. The stren- 
uous life appeals to the vigorous youth and animates 
him with a zeal which is often void of knowledge. 
This overanxietyis possessed not by the young alone, 
but is prevalent among all classes in these modern 



166 GREAT THINGS OF THE BIBLE 

times, and has become the warp and woof in the fabric 
of business activity. Disregarding the laws of human 
endurance and exceeding the bounds of reason, there 
are those who plunge on with an over-anxious desire 
to acquire wealth or to gain recognition among their 
contemporaries as the possessors of superior talents. 
They, like the river that so accurately duplicates their 
course, reach a pause or breathing place which is their 
"Merom," then rush onward again in a spasmodic 
dash until some "Sea of Oalilee" affords needed rest. 
Once more they bound forth until a "Dead Sea'" 
marks their untimely and fatal end. "We do well to 
know that the way to success is not down a toboggan 
slide but up a ladder. There are those who have the 
auspicious beginning of their career from the lofty 
summit of some "Mount Everest," the topmost roof 
of the world, and soon finish up in the sub-cellar of 
a "Dead Sea." 

A high and fixed purpose should dominate every 
Mfe, and an earnest, persistent effort should be made 
to reach that goal ; but great care should be exercised 
lest we become overzealous to reach the end, and break 
forth at Jordan speed soon to drop in some lifeless 
pit. Toil on, but let patience have her perfect work. 
What gain is there in attempting to add two hours 
to each end of the day, or adding the seventh working 
day to the week? What advantage is there in trying 
to do two men's work? He who would crowd two 
days into one is much like the man who was trying 
to cross his bees with lightning bugs so they could 



CHRISTIAN POISE 167 

work day and night. He who thus forces his days 
has lived out his three-score years and ten at the age 
of thirty-five and at his Jordan speed may at that age 
rush into the sea of death. Jordan-like youths plunge 
into business life with an unfinished education. Jor- 
dan politicians would undo laws calculated to bring 
us future good, and enact such laws as would hasten 
us on our flow in a vain show to-day, though they bring 
us to a Dead Sea to-morrow. Great men have been 
content to use sane methods, and wait long to see 
permanent results. There may be an elevator to the 
top floor of success, but it is generally out of com- 
mission. The stairway is still popular and always 
safe. You, who stand in the golden gateway of the 
dawn, and see the years before you like a fruitful 
country at your feet ripe for conquest, avoid all at- 
tempts at repeating the story of the Jordan. I exhort 
you to profit by Paul's admonition to the Philippians : 
"Let your moderation be known unto all men." 

II. The Vacillating Casiquiare. 

In South America there is a little stream known 
as the Casiquiare, an affluent to both the Orinoco and 
the Amazon. This little river affords a striking con- 
trast to that of the Jordan. Instead of being so over- 
anxious in attaining a fixed purpose, it yields to the 
slightest influence. This river is at the Equator, 
where thunder showers occur daily. When there has 
been a heavy rainfall in the Amazon district, it flows 
into the Orinoco, and when the precipitation is heavier 



168 GREAT THINGS OF THE BIBLE 

in the Orinoco valley it flows toward the Amazon. 
What an obliging river, bnt how void of purpose! 
How like the weather vane that adjusts itself to every 
wind! There is but one Casiquiare river in all the 
world, yesterday it flowed southward, to-day it flows 
northward, who knows which way it will flow to- 
morrow ? 

There are those who belong to this Casiquiare class, 
possessing no definite purpose, void of conviction, with 
no minds to think for themselves. When they hear a 
lecture or concert they wait until they see the morning 
paper before they endorse or criticize. They are relig- 
ious to-day and profane to-morrow ; republicans one 
day and democrats the next. Like lost dogs they will 
follow anybody ready to make him their master. They 
choose the popular side of every issue regardless of 
merits. They are like the chameleon, which makes a 
fair attempt to become the color of whatever object 
it chances to be upon. One finds as much difficulty 
in classifying such people as did the Irishman in 
accounting for his pig. Pat was sent by his master 
with a fat pig in a poke as a present to the priest. 
He stopped at a saloon on the way for a glass of 
beer. While there some bums removed the pig and 
put a pup in the poke. The priest was insulted when 
he saw the pup and refused to accept the gift. Pat 
returning, stopped again at the saloon. This time the 
bums removed the pup and replaced the pig. Upon 
his arrival he said to his master, ' 'Shure an' that pig's 
a pup an' the prastc will have none of yer prisent." 



CHRISTIAN POISE 169 

When he opened the poke and saw the pig he said, 
"Begorra, I wish you be pig all the toime or pup all 
the toime, so I know what you be anyhow. ' ' 

This Casiquiare, turn-coat spirit is rife in the land. 
Here is a man who starts to live with some woman as 
his wife and to-morrow divorces her in the hope of 
getting another. This class of people is like the hound 
which chased a deer until a fox crossed his path and 
then pursued it until a hare jumped out of the grass, 
then followed it. When the master came upon the 
hound he was barking at a hole in the ground into 
which he had run a mouse. You may laugh at this 
hound, but I have seen men and women who pre- 
tended to be seeking the "Pearl of great price" show 
up two weeks later with a dirty dime novel or a stink- 
ing demijohn. Such people remind me of the man 
who, on his word that he was an engineer, was em- 
ployed as hostler in the time of a railroad strike. He 
mounted an engine and opened the throttle to drive 
into the roundhouse. To prevent running through 
the wall at the farther side, he threw the reverse lever 
and the engine rushed back. Again he changed the 
lever and the engine shot into the building as before. 
Once more he threw the reverse and this time the 
engine shot back over the turntable into the yards. 
The foreman asked, "Why didn't you stop her in 
the barn?" The man replied, "I had her in twice, 
why didn't you shut the door?" 

Happy is he who can "become all things to all men" 
if in that he retains his own individuality and exerts 



170 GREAT THINGS OF THE BIBLE 

a positive influence for good. There is a vast difference 
between this chameleon-like, Casiquiare, vacillating 
class, and the sort of man that Paul became when he 
was ' ' all things to all men. ' ' If your life stream flows 
southward, to the fisherman become a stream abound- 
ing in fish, but when he throws in his line see to it 
that his cork drifts southward; to the raftsman let 
your surface be smooth and your channel deep, but 
convince him that if he launches his raft it will be 
carried ever southward; afford the miller a site along 
your bank for his mill, but leave him not in doubt 
as to which end of the race to set his mill; congeal 
your surface for the skater, but let there be beneath 
the ice a constant southward current. 

III. The Disappearing Humboldt. 

The Hlumboldt is the largest river in Nevada, It 
is fed by the melting snow from surrounding moun- 
tains and traverses the state but is not even navigable 
by canoes. The waters of its tributaries come dashing 
down the mountain side and give promise of a great 
river when all united, but they soon disappear in the 
sands of the Humboldt's bed. Cross this river just 
below an affluent and the water flows wide and deep ; 
cross it again some miles below and it flows narrow 
and shallow; cross it once more farther down and it 
disappears altogether. What a contrast between this 
disappearing river and the two we have just con- 
sidered. Unlike the Jordan, in that it is not over- 
anxious to reach its goal, and unlike the Casiquiare, 



CHRISTIAN POISE 171 

in that though hidden beneath the sands of its bed it 
continues on its determined course, never retracing 
itself, yet falls far short of an ideal stream. 

There are some who remind us of the disappearing 
Humboldt, those who are all for appearance, who are 
all front door. Open the door and you are in the 
back yard. Upon these people you cannot depend. 
They promise fair to-day, but to-morrow sink in the 
sands of irresponsibility. They are like the Ephraim- 
ites of old, who sank in the sands of obscurity until 
Gideon and his three hundred put the Midianites to 
flight, then came forth expressing their desire to help ; 
men like those Israelites who hid themselves in the 
mountains until Jonathan and his faithful armor- 
bearer smote the Philistines' garrison, then came from 
their hiding and followed hard after them in battle. 
How often do we find that those upon whom we relied 
have disappeared like the subterranean river. There 
are Humboldt-like politicians who flow at flood tide 
just preceding election day and later, when in the 
discharge of official duties, sink in the sands of irre- 
sponsibility and hide beneath the slightest technicality. 
He who promises much and does little or nothing is 
the shifting sand of the river bed, while the highest 
compliment to be paid a man is that he constantly does 
more for his friends and generation than they could 
reasonably expect. 

There are those who were pillars in some country or 
village church, but when they moved into the city 
became pillow-shams, or caterpillars, and carried a 



172 GREAT THINGS OF THE BIBLE 

church letter in a trunk for ten years rather than 
become affiliated with the church and contribute to 
the success of the greatest institution in the world. 
Come, my brother, "show thyself a man." Unfurl 
the banner of truth and carry it always at full mast. 
Do not permit the sacred emblem to trail in the dust 
of indifference. During Lent some people live like 
millennial citizens, but after Easter take down the 
decorations and stack the gilded lettering "He Is 
Risen, ' ' behind the coal bin in the church basement 
and crave the flesh pots of Egypt the rest of the year. 
Some will never reach Heaven unless they die during 
Lent. I believe in a Lent that is kept three hundrd 
and sixty-five days in the year for Jesus. Be not a 
Jonah when a Nineveh is to be warned. Be a Samuel 
who with perfect poise reproves Eli, the priest, and 
Saul, the king. If you are an Elijah to-day suc- 
cessfully calling the challenge of the prophets of Baal 
on Mount Carmel, and serve a God who answers by 
fire, see to it that you are not under some "juniper 
tree" to-morrow. Be a Daniel, though forced into 
exile or made the companion of lions. Be a Joseph 
and stand firm with God for the right whether in a 
dungeon or on a throne, "Show thyself a man." 

IV. The Subdividing Nile. 

The Nile is the largest river in the world that flows 
northward. It was in the attempt to discover the 
source of this river that the venerable African mis- 
sionary, Livingstone, met his lamented death. From 



CHRISTIAN POISE 173 

the deep recesses of the extreme interior of Africa 
this river flows through a valley rich in the history 
of yesterdays. For hundreds of miles it receives no 
tributaries, finally, so heavily freighted with alluvial 
deposit, it builds many deltas which divide its chan- 
nel into a multitude of lesser ones. The entire volume 
of all these streamlets cannot exceed the flow of the 
upper United Nile. However valuable the lower Nile 
may be in giving its rich deposit at flood time, if the 
rivers were anointing a king to reign over them, the 
Nile witli its multiplied streamlets would be looked 
upon as a mockery and a weakling in the river king- 
dom. 

Many men there are who, like the Nile, spring forth 
in youth from an unknown source in some obscure 
wilderness, and flow down through the valley of mid- 
dle life in one vast volume, freighted with those talents 
which count in the field of human greatness. But 
alas! Great men often become weaklings by so divi- 
ding their energies as to meet defeat at every turn. 
Concentration is like banks to a river which increases 
the current for the mill-wheel. Bushing between its 
banks, the Ehine has power through its confinement; 
spreading out over the plains of northern Germany 
it is a mere marsh, laden with miasma. The guide's 
lantern burns dim, while the lightning blinds you as 
it flashes across the midnight sky, but for the purpose 
of consulting your road map, a tallow candle is worth 
a sky full of lightning. Luther was not the unchained 
lightning when he nailed his thesis on the door of 



174 GREAT THINGS OF THE BIBLE 

the church in Wittenberg but the concentrated flame 
of the arc lamp by the light of which all the world 
could read. 

The typical Nile-like man would be at the same 
time a lawyer, physician, auctioneer, inventor, at the 
head of a great business, hold public office, publish a 
newspaper, be an architect, a sculptor, undertaker, 
banker, farmer, president of a mining company, con- 
duct a courtship episode, and to cap it all off, become 
a "one horse" preacher. Someone ought to send a 
man like that the recipe a Nimrod paid a dollar for 
to prevent his shotgun from scattering, which read, 
"Just put in one shot." He who chases two hares 
will catch neither, but the swiftest deer will surrender 
the chase to the one who follows on in a persistent, 
definite pursuit. Consecrated purpose has been the 
imperial judge who bestowed the badge of victory upon 
all who have achieved in the affairs of human progress. 

The determined youth of Spain may be termed a 
dreamer, but with undaunted faith in the face of 
defeat he toiled on, and after the lapse of years kissed 
the soil of a new continent, now the home of happy 
millions. If in the temple of endeavor we would find 
the key to unlock the door of the room in which is 
found the golden altar, "Success," we must be able 
to say with Paul: "This one thing I do, forgetting 
those things which are behind, and reaching forth 
unto those things which are before, I press toward 
the mark for the prize of the high calling in Christ 
Jesus." We must with David say, "One thing have 



CHRISTIAN POISE 175 

I desired of the Lord, that will I seek after." Only 
those who thus seek will find. The butterfly is a 
thing of beauty as it flits about every shrub in the 
garden, but the bee that contents himself with the 
one rose bush and goes deep into the blossom to receive 
its sweets alone has honey enough and to spare. Your 
ancestors were more than the caterpillar, higher yet 
than the brood of the honey-comb; you are endowed 
with talents which make it imperative that you show 
yourselves men. 

V. The Onflowing Mississippi. 

Perhaps of all rivers the Mississippi affords the 
most fitting illustration of a well balanced life. A 
little schoolboy once asked his father, "If the Mis- 
sissippi is the Father of Waters why don't we call it 
Mr. Sippi?" The name or gender of this river may 
confuse a youth, but here is a magnificent stream 
differing much from the Jordan, in that it is noted 
for its gentle flow, the absence of rapids and falls. 
Differing much from the Casiquiare, in that it does 
have a fixed and definite course, not over-anxious to 
reach its end, but moves continuously on free from 
lakes and eddies. Differing, too, from the Humboldt 
for its flow is uniform, augmented by each succeeding 
affluent on its way to the Gulf. Differing, also, from 
the Nile, though not entirely free from deltas. Its 
great channel rolls out into the Gulf and ocean wel- 
coming the ships of trade to its bosom and carries far 
inland, to the greatest string of cities on a single 



176 GREAT THINGS OF THE BIBLE 

river system in the world, the necessities and luxuries 
of life. Flow on, great stream, flow on! King thou 
art of all the rivers, sovereign of the most fertile 
valley in all the world. Thy banks are lined by the 
arteries of commerce throbbing with the essence of 
life; thou art spanned by a hundred bridges, each 
of which is a gateway leading to the land of plenty. 
Flow on, and may the millions of thy industrious and 
prosperous subjects give of their surplus to feed the 
hungry of the world! Flow on, and may thy gentle 
murmur speak as the voice of God to every indifferent 
and slumbering soul and bid him, ' ' Arise, show thyself 
a "man." 

Possessor of a commodity offered in the exchange 
of trade, though others water stock and make cotton 
appear as wool, be honest, "Show thyself a man." 
Servant of the people in legislative hall, regardless 
of unpopularity and political stripes from monopo- 
listic demagogues, stand for the interests of the masses 
of your constituents, do not betray your trust, re- 
member your oath of office, "Show thyself a man." 
Custodian of justice, empowered to give legal advice 
in all matters of litigation, when property, liberty, 
and life are in the balance, regardless of the applause 
of an uninformed public or the hisses of an inflamed 
mob, be true to your client and the best interests of 
society, "Show thyself a man." Guardian of health, 
called to minister in the sick room, diagnose the case 
with care, be true to the patient and to the God of 
life, though another may stoop to the deeds of a 



CHRISTIAN POISE 177 

quack, "Show thyself a man." Called of God to 
minister in holy things, cultivate the gift of prayer, 
develop the art of public speaking, familiarize yourself 
with the Living Word, attain efficiency in all possible 
ways, but above all, "Show thyself a man." It is 
said of Enoch before his translation that "he pleased 
God. ' ' Oh, my brother, let it be the highest ambition 
of your life to please Him whose approbation sur- 
passes the applause of multitudes, and know this, that 
to please Him you must "Show thyself a man." 

Christian Poise — what is it ? Look upon the ' ' Man 
Christ Jesus." He who never in all His earthly life 
exhibited undue haste, yet had a definite purpose 
toward which He constantly labored, never faltering, 
never evading duty, never dividing His energies, con- 
scious that His mission was to "seek and to save that 
which was lost," He walked without halting to the 
Cross. What perfect composure when enemies criti- 
cized ! What balance of judgment at all times exhib- 
ited! Reviled, yet He reviled not again, gentle as a 
lamb, brave as a lion, pure as a child, tender as a 
woman, and as strong as a man. Tempted in all points 
as we are and yet without sin. A Man of sorrows and 
acquainted with grief. Commending righteous deeds, 
reproving sin, a Succor to the weak, and a Friend to 
all. Identifying Himself always with the {needy, 
relieving distress, administering to the sick and bring- 
ing comfort to the house of mourning. In Him we 
have an Example that calls for our highest endeavor. 
May the Lord lead us through our imperfections "till 



178 GREAT THINGS OF THE BIBLE 

we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the 
knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man," 
a man possessing Christian Poise, "unto the measure 
of the stature of the fulness of Christ/ ' 



XII 

LOST OPPORTUNITIES 

"He came to Nazareth, where He had been brought up: as 
His Custom mas, He went into the synagogue on the Sabbath 
day, and stood up for to read. ' ' — Luke 4 : 16. 

As we assemble for the first service in this taber- 
nacle and stand upon the threshold of this campaign, 
we have a purpose as high as the noblest aspiration 
of man. Angels may be peeping over the battlements 
of glory and perhaps the cohorts of hell look in won- 
derment from their dens of infamy to ascertain the 
outcome of these services. The inhabitants of sur- 
rounding country and neighboring towns have heard 
the clarion call which brought us together and ex- 
pectantly await information as to the results of this 
united effort. Never before have the citizens of this 
city faced opportunities which meant as much to their 
happiness and eternal salvation as those now con- 
fronting us. These opportunities are freighted with 
such possibilities as to make it imperative that we 
seriously consider the responsibility which they bring. 
Let us then study the coming of Jeans to Nazareth 
as He announces His Deity and mission; for He did 
not more truly come to Nazareth in person than He 
is coming in Spirit to this city in these days of evan- 
gelistic endeavor. Therefore, the most intelligent way 
to decide what to do with such opportunities is to 
determine what we will do with Jesus. 

179 



180 GREAT THINGS OF THE BIBLE 

I. An Opportunity to Hear. 

What an opportunity the residents of Nazareth had 
to hear the divine message from the lips of the Divine 
Messenger! The coming of Jesus was unannounced 
and the audience He found was the regular Sabbath 
morning worshipers. "Why were many, who could 
and should have been out to hear this, the only sermon 
Jesus ever delivered in His home town, not there? 
Was it because they did not know He was to preach ? 
Was it because they were not interested in spiritual 
things? Were some not there because the old scribe 
had been a little too personal and mandatory in his 
teaching? Were some absent because they did not 
have a new Easter bonnet or a new dress for the 1 
baby? Why need I go further? You may as well 
know now as later that I am not here to reprove a 
people two thousand years dead. It is not the sins 
of the "Amorites, and the Perizzites, and the Canaan- 
ites, and the Hittites, and the Girghashites, and the 
Hivites, and the Jebusites," nor the Nazarethites, but 
it is the sins of Americanites that I am to expose. 
You have a generation of American heathen here who 
have not been in a church for so long that were they 
to go they would feel as strangely environed as a hobo 
in the dining-room of the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel. 
That is why we had to build this tabernacle, to help 
you form the habit of going to church. 

Some of you were down here for choice seats twenty 
minutes before the hour of services who have not 



LOST OPPORTUNITIES 181 

heard your pastor preach six times in the past six 
months. You do not go to church because you take 
a Sunday paper, or go fishing, or run to the Sunday 
movie, or follow a Saturday night revelry with late 
sleep and drive out in your auto in the evening. You 
remain at home to entertain company. Take your 
company to church with you or let them sit on the 
door step until you return. When you remain at home 
for visitors you are losing better company than you 
get, I do not care who comes to see you. You cannot 
afford to crowd out God and stint your own soul by 
catering to Sunday festivities. Place God and the 
salvation of souls before any company. Some of you 
remain from church saying, "We hired the preacher 
to run the church." No you did not. If he were 
to attempt that by beginning on you, you would balk 
more stubbornly than a mule. Others of you do not 
go to church because your pastor is uncompromising 
in his denunciation of your personal sins. When he 
preaches against frenzied speculation, booze fighting, 
gossiping and social cards some of you sizzle like a 
piece of bacon on a hot griddle. Perhaps you were 
not asked to sing a solo, or the weather was too hot or 
too cold; somebody did not speak to you, or you had 
an imagined cold or the asthma, that is why you were 
not there. Did you ever notice how colds, and asthma, 
and Sunday headaches, and rheuma^z behave them- 
selves when a social function is given or a public 
dinner served? Nine times out of ten your absence 
from church is because you are sensual and carnal 



182 GREAT THINGS OF THE BIBLE 

and blind to your soul's best interest. Do you hear 
that, you sleeping, backslidden church member? 

Does someone say, "Mr. Newlin, you haven't hit 
the reason yet why I do not go to church. I do not 
become a Christian and attend services because of the 
many imperfections of the church." If that is your 
excuse you would do well to follow the example of 
Jesus.' He worshipped in a church that was far from 
perfect. I do not know where you could find a perfect 
church and if you should find one it would be imper- 
fect in five minutes, if you were to become a member. 
A man may always profit where the Word of God 
is read. As long as a church stands by the Bible she 
will be a help to any man, but when she gives up 
the Bible, all or any part of it, she might as well 
close her doors. If one ever had a sufficient reason to 
stay away from church because of her imperfections, 
Jesus certainly was that one. But He went to church, 
went regularly, went to worship, and a better habit 
no man ever formed. "As His custom was, He went 
into the synagogue. ' ' Jesus was not spasmodic in His 
church attendance. He did not begin going when He 
entered upon His public ministry. He first went when 
a baby in His mother's arms ; at the age of twelve upon 
His own initiative He accompanied His parents to 
the Passover in Jerusalem, and He was regular in 
attendance at worship until He went back to Heaven. 

When did you attend prayer meeting last ? You ask, 
"Will one lose the opportunity of hearing anything 
worth while if he should miss prayer meeting? Thomas 



LOST OPPORTUNITIES 183 

certainly did. He did not go because he expected noth- 
ing out of the ordinary to happen. He thought Peter 
would lead the meeting and he was not an admirer of 
Peter's long prayers. Jesus was now dead, why should 
he go ? There would be little of interest to him there. 
Poor Thomas! Peter did not lead the service as he 
supposed. Jesus was there with the Resurrection 
message. What an opportunity he missed! Thomas 
was present the next prayer meeting night and I am 
entertaining the hope that as much may hereafter be 
said of you. There were those in Macedonia who 
failed to attend an open air service, a typical twentieth 
century prayer meeting, not a man present, only 
women in attendance. One afternoon some excused 
themselves from going because there were indications 
of rain, or they had a little headache and thought the 
meeting would not amount to much. But Paul, the 
apostle to the Gentiles, appeared and delivered the 
first sermon ever heard in Macedonia. How I should 
like to have been there ! A revival broke out in which 
Lydia and her entire household were converted. 

Yes, Thomas and the inhabitants of Macedonia and 
the people of Nazareth all lost great opportunities to 
hear. They would have been present had they known 
something out of the ordinary was to happen. Cer- 
tainly! There are always those who miss everything 
else and take in all the specials. I suppose I have 
some of them here this morning who always hear every 
new preacher whether their pastor has a hearing or 
not. You home-staying, ear-itching, cold-hearted, back- 



184 GREAT THINGS OF THE BIBLE 

slidden speciality, you always miss something good 
when you remain from any service in the church where 
you belong and ought to be. God bless the regulars, 
a half dozen of them cause the devil more concern than 
a whole tribe of these religious gadders. I am preach- 
ing to people this morning who have lost the oppor- 
tunity of hearing some of the greatest sermons the 
past twelve months, delivered from the pulpits of this 
city by the pastors on this platform, that were ever 
preached in a city of this size in the state. You haven't 
a minister here but would, if given a full house of 
earnest hearers at every service, preach with such ani- 
mation as to interest Gabriel and the angelic host of 
heaven. I pray that the Spirit of God may awaken 
the people of this city, and that in addition to the 
saving of souls, we may have a great and permanent 
revival of church going. 

II. An Opportunity to Receive. 

Let us see in the second place, how those who did 
hear the Master's great Nazareth sermon lost the op- 
portunity of receiving the attendant blessing by not 
accepting it as from God. What happened in the syn- 
agogue that morning which those Nazareth home-stay- 
ers missed? There was given to Jesus the book of 
Isaiah's prophecy, "And when He had opened the 
book, He found the place where it is written.' ' I do 
not know what you think of the method of which 
some boast ; that of placing the Bible on the desk and 
preaching from any text which their eyes happen to 



LOST OPPORTUNITIES 185 

fall upon where the Book chances to open. I have 
never adopted that method, nor did Jesus. He opened 
the Book and "found the place." He knew what text 
would be appropriate for the occasion and where to 
find it ; He knew what to preach and how to do it. He 
always spoke as one who had something to say rather 
than as one who had to say something. The latter is 
a blank cartridge and the former a loaded shell of 
large caliber. When He fired He hit the mark. By 
the help of God, brethren, while here, I purpose not 
to shoot wild of fire any empty cartridges. 

Listen ! Here is His text, ' ' The Spirit of the Lord 
is upon me, because He hath anointed me to preach 
the Gospel to the poor; He hath sent me to heal the 
broken hearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, 
and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty 
them that are bruised, to preach the acceptable year 
of the Lord." By comparing Isaiah 61 :1,2 with these 
words in Luke, you will find that He omitted one 
clause from the text in Isaiah. He began His sermon 
by saying, ' ' This day is this Scripture fulfilled in your 
ears." The clause omitted reads, "To proclaim the 
day of vengeance of our God." He is coming again 
some day and when He does that will be His text. 
He knew what part of the verse referred to His first 
advent and what belonged to the second, and in an- 
nouncing His text He was clear on that point. 

"The eyes of all them that were in the synagogue 
were fastened on Him." Nobody asleep in church 
that morning. The minister who can grip his audi- 



186 GREAT THINGS OF THE BIBLE 

ence with the first sentence and ever afterward 
hold their attention has acquired a great art. 
Jesus was able to do that. ' ' All bear Him witness, and 
wondered at the gracious words which proceeded out 
of His mouth. ' ' What eloquence ! What earnestness ! 
What a personal, soul-stirring message that was ! What 
other message did He ever deliver that, from a human 
standpoint, so affected Him as this one? He is in 
the town of His boyhood and His audience is composed 
of His most intimate acquaintances. Those with whom 
he grew to manhood are before Him. What emotions 
must have welled up in Him while telling them His 
mission in the world! They "Wondered at the gra- 
cious words which proceeded out of Hjis mouth. ' ' They 
were certainly great hearers. But remember the Scrip- 
ture says "Not the hearers of the law are just before 
God, but the doers of the law shall be justified. ' ' You 
would have thought the way they leaned forward to 
catch those "gracious words" that they would cer- 
tainly appropriate His teaching and receive the bless- 
ing from God. No, not that audience. Before He 
pronounced the benediction, while He was yet speak- 
ing those "gracious words," they stumbled at His 
Deity and began to whisper to one another, "Is not 
this Joseph's son V They were just like a lot of twen- 
tieth century sinners, they were more concerned about 
the Messenger than the Message. 

When Peter, the great preacher of Pentecost, was 
in prison, a service was announced to be held in 
Mary's home. Those who were converted to Peter 



LOST OPPORTUNITIES 187 

rather than to Christianity stayed away thinking that 
Andrew would consider himself appointed as spokes- 
man in his brother's absence. Their interest was in 
the messenger rather than the message. If you have 
pinned your religion to any other than Jesus you have 
none worth the naming for the devil got the whole 
of it in less than twenty-four hours. But Peter ivas 
there. They prayed for his deliverance and God sent 
the answer to their prayer in a pair of sandals. The 
answer came before they had finished asking. What 
a prayer meeting, and some missed it just as you have 
been missing the special seasons for prayer the past 
few weeks. I believe in prayer meetings in the home ; 
they are Scriptural and encourage the taking of our 
religion home with us. Too many of us leave what 
little religion we have down at the church. Christian- 
ity is a splendid thing to have around the house. One 
of the things I hope to see accomplished in this cam- 
paign is the establishing of family altars and popular- 
izing prayer services in the home. Think what that 
meeting must have meant to young John Mark, a 
son of the home, when Peter came walking in, the 
answer to their prayer. I do not know of a warmer 
place for a young man than in the corner of his own 
home where prevailing prayer is offered. But think 
what those missed who deliberately stayed away think- 
ing they would not hear the messenger of their liking. 
Which do you talk about at the Sunday dinner 
table, the message or the messenger? Many children 
seldom hear a sermon, but they hear one rehashed or 



188 GREAT THINGS OF THE BIBLE 

rather hear their parents discussing the minister. Some 
of them will be eternally doomed because of the un- 
favorable comment they hear of the pastor. The 
"gracious" words are forgotten and the conversation 
centers in "Joseph's son." What will be the subject 
of your conversation at the dinner hour to-day? I 
guess you have already thought of several things you 
intend to say about the evangelist. "He is a little 
younger looking than I thought he would be." "I 
wonder if he is married. " " How do you like his deliv- 
ery?" Never mind the delivery, if you put in your 
appearance you will get what is coming to you. I 
hope the message will so grip you that you will entirely 
forget the messenger. It is the quality of the steak 
that determines its wholesomeness and not the color 
of the delivery wagon or the fact the driver wore a red 
tie. "When fire breaks out in your home at midnight 
it is the quick response of the fire department that 
saves your home, and not whether it was a woman or 
a man, a university graduate or an imbecile, a million- 
aire or a hobo who turned in the alarm. 

A messenger rings your door bell and hands you a 
little yellow envelope which you open and read the 
message, "Mother is dying, come." You do not talk 
about the age of the messenger, how he dressed or how 
he acted. It is the message that sends the dagger to 
your heart and starts you across three States in the 
race with death. Jesus went to His home town, Naza- 
reth, as the ' ' Messenger Boy ' ' with God 's telegram in- 
viting them to the Marriage of the Lamb. They "won- 



LOST OPPORTUNITIES 189 

dered at the gracious words' ' as He read that message, 
but instead of receiving it with the joy of true believers 
they said, "Is not this Joseph's son?" I shall sin-, 
cerely endeavor in this campaign to deliver the true 
message fearlessly, uncompromisingly, lovingly, and in 
the power of the Spirit. May the God of heaven stir 
your hearts and help you to get your eyes off the 
messenger and fix your hearts upon the message of 
eternal life. 

III. An Opportunity to Serve. 

Nazareth's opportunity to hear and to receive was 
only surpassed by her incomparable opportunity to 
serve. Jesus is never left without a few who are ready 
to hear and willing to receive, but we would often let 
Him trod the winepress alone. He reproved those who 
would not enlist in service with Him, saying, ' ' Ye will 
surely say unto me this proverb, Physician, heal thy- 
self ; whatsoever we have heard done in Capernaum, 
do also here in thy country. No prophet is accepted 
in his own country." He then used the following 
illustrations, saying in effect: "Many widows were 
in Israel in the days of Elijah, the prophet, when the 
heavens were shut up three years and six months, and 
great famine was throughout all the land; but unto 
none of the widows in Israel did God send His prophet. 
Through sin and unbelief there was not one widow 
in all Israel to whom His prophet could be sent. So 
he was sent beyond Israel, even unto Sarepta, a city 
of Sidon, unto a woman who was a widow, and there, 



190 GREAT THINGS OF THE BIBLE 

out in the heathen world, God's prophet was enter- 
tained. There was not a widow in all Israel whose 
barrel of meal wasted not and whose cruse of oil did 
not fail in the time of prolonged famine ; not a widow 
in Israel whose son was brought again to life, not one 
save the widow of Sarepta, who heard, received and 
served the prophet of God. 

Just as the skilled woodsman strikes his axe twice 
in the same place to split the knotty, cohesive stick, 
so Jesus in His second illustration struck just where 
He had before, saying : ' ' There were many lepers in 
Israel in the time of Elisha the prophet, but not one 
leper in all Israel was cleansed. The only leper re- 
stored was Naaman, the Syrian, from far away Damas- 
cus, beyond the borders of the children of the Cove- 
nant. And now must the anointed Son of God turn 
from His home and kindred and the chosen seed of 
Abraham because of the blindness of your eyes and 
the stubbornness of your wills ? Must I, through your 
rigid unbelief and hardness of heart, turn also to the 
Gentile world as did Elijah and Elisha?" He gave 
them a close fitting shoe and it pinched their corns. 
"What was the effect of these illustrations? We are 
not left to guess. "When they heard these things"— 
the two illustrations and they certainly heard, nobody 
in the audience was asleep— "All in the synagogue, 
when they heard these things were filled with wrath, 
and rose up and thrust Him out of the city, and led 
Him unto the brow of the hill whereon the city was 
built, that they might cast Him down headlong." 



LOST OPPORTUNITIES 191 

Jesus often spoke "gracious words" at which His 
hearers marveled, but when it became necessary to 
reprove sin with sharp, cutting accusations He did 
so in no pussy-footed manner. It is a great art to 
know how to season the message with the right mixture 
of grace and grit, of love and law. 

A lost opportunity to serve. Not one man in all 
Nazareth rose up to stay the mob. They seemed to 
think, as some do now, that to expel the messenger is 
to expunge the truth of the message. It no more makes 
your sin a virtue to hump up your back like a camel 
and belittle the church than to break the mirror would 
remove freckles from your nose ; neither does it change 
your course from hell to heaven to throw the Bible 
into the fire and denounce the preacher for telling you 
the truth. The only thing that will save you from 
eternal woe is to repent of your sin and with Paul 
become "a servant of Jesus Christ." Herod and Pi- 
late, Cagsar and Agrippa, Felix and Festus all heard 
and trembled with feeling. They had their oppor- 
tunity, but serve Christ they would not. Their oppor- 
tunity like all lost opportunities was irretrievable and 
they are banished from God as a consequence. Naza- 
reth had its hearers and Jerusalem its believers, but 
Jesus went alone to the brow of Nazareth's hill, to 
the courtroom in Jerusalem and to Calvary's summit. 
At least some in Nazareth heard and there must have 
been a few who received the Messenger as from God, 
but there were none to serve. A lost opportunity. 
Never again could they keep step with Him in the 



192 GREAT THINGS OF THE BIBLE 

streets of Nazareth and join with Him in the effica- 
cious work of lifting a lost world from the depths of 
sin back into favor with God. "Who knows when he 
is having his last opportunity to hear, his last oppor- 
tunity to receive, and his last opportunity to serve? 
This evangelistic campaign will be the last opportunity 
some of you will ever have to win a soul to Jesus. 
"Will you lose that opportunity or will you, in the 
power of the Spirit, go forth to the work as a faithful 
servant ? 

It is one of God's laws of economy to take away that 
which is unused. The unexercised arm will lose its 
cunning. The inactive mind will lose its store of 
knowledge. The unemployed talent is taken from the 
slothful servant and given to him who occupies. ' ' Thou 
mayest be no longer steward," is God's pronuncia- 
mento upon many who have lost opportunities to serve. 
Poor Nazareth-like Christian, your opportunity is gone 
and gone forever if you allow the Savior to pass with- 
out joining in service with Him. He never went back 
to Nazareth to find pillars upon which to build His 
church. Had some man risen up that morning in 
Nazareth and said, ' ' If you cast Jesus over that preci- 
pice you will have to cast me over it also, for with 
Him I live, with Ham I serve, and if need be with 
Him I die," he would have been held up by every 
preacher the past two thousand years as the most 
worthy example of Christian courage and loyal service. 
Opportunity knocks at least once at every man's door 
and at the door of every city, but it never kicks in 



LOST OPPORTUNITIES 193 

the panels. You let these services come and go and 
do nothing — do anything short of your best to win 
your friends to Christ, and you will have lost, if not 
your last opportunity to win them, certainly a better 
one than you will ever again have. May the Lord help 
you to realize this. The people of this city are at this 
hour face to face with an unexcelled opportunity for 
Christian service. I ask, what will you do with this 
opportunity? May the Lord open our eyes and ears 
and hearts to see and hear and receive just such a 
blessing as He knows this city needs, and may Jesus 
be able to count on us for service too, for we cannot 
have a revival until we are willing to work. 



XIII 

THE WINNING CHURCH 

"They continued steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine and 
fellowship, and in breaking of bread, and in prayers. * * * 
And "the Lord added to the church daily such as should be 
saved." — Acts 2:42, 47. 

There are three things said to have been daily 
occurrences in the early church; a daily searching of 
the Scriptures, a daily multiplying of believers, and 
a daily adding to the church. When the Spirit of 
Pentecost was at high tide three thousand were saved 
in one day and the months had not lengthened into a 
year before the church had nearly fifty thousand mem- 
bers. "They continued steadfastly." The steadfast- 
ness of the early church was made possible by all the 
membership being ' ' with one accord. ' ' There is a vast 
difference between being steadfast with God and being 
stuckfast for the devil. Grod cannot bless a church 
when its members are carried away by every novelty 
and are as variable as a weathervane. This church 
was and every other winning church is steadfast. 

I. Steadfast in Doctrine. 

"They continued steadfastly in the apostles' doc- 
trine." They did not belong to that class of fickle 
religionists who have mutilated the Bible until it re- 
sembles an agent's prospectus. Whenever the church 
gives up the plain, fixed truths of the Bible she might 
as well quit. The man with no hook on his line might 



THE WINNING CHURCH 195 

as well leave the stream. He cannot even catch a mud 
turtle without a hook. If we have outgrown the Gos- 
pel we have lost our hook and will fail as "fishers of 
men." I brand the liberal-thought propaganda as a 
subtle agency of the devil and nail my faith to the 
Cross and stick by the old Book. Never was there 
a time when more false doctrines were being taught 
than now. There are the Eddyites, the Russellites, the 
Mormonites and all the rest of the parasites. I never 
waste much time exposing Christian Science for I once 
saw a football player sprain his ankle by kicking at 
nothing and have ever since been rather cautious. 

This running after every religious fanatic who starts 
some doctrine of the devil reminds me of the old 
Arkansas farmer who, when asked what was the mat- 
ter with his hogs, they were so poor, replied, "When 
I lost my voice a year ago I could not call them to 
their feed, so I got a big stick and hammered on the 
crib and they soon learned that was a call to their 
corn. They were doing well until three weeks ago 
when some woodpeckers came in here and went to 
pounding on the old dead trees. My hogs ran in the 
direction of the noise, thinking it was my call to their 
feed. When they came running and squealing the 
frightened woodpeckers would fly to another dead 
tree and the hogs would run to that part of the woods. 
They have just about run my hogs to death. ' ' I hope 
the church will cease running after these religious 
woodpeckers. Much so-called "new thought" is old 
nonsense. 



196 GREAT THINGS OF THE BIBLE 

A steadfast church is one whose members realize 
they have something with which to save men. You can 
preach ethics and reform and liberal thoughtism with 
the persistence of a Mormon elder, but sinners will 
continue to go in the way of Cain and run greedily 
after the error of Balaam. An old speckled hen will 
hatch no chickens from china eggs even though she 
keeps watch over the nest for six weeks. The man 
who tries to save sinners with anything less than Jesus 
Christ and Him crucified has gone into the china egg 
business. He might as well go on an elephant hunt 
in Africa with nothing but a popgun that shoots only 
paper wads as to preach a Christless message to twen- 
tieth century sinners. The Gospel of the atoning blood 
of Jesus is the buckshot which pierces the heart of 
sin Tiers and leads them to repentance. "The Gospel 
of Christ is the power of God unto salvation" and 
there is no substitute. 

We hear much these days about the something to 
which men are saved: to a life of respectability, to 
home, to Heaven; but we hear very little about that 
from which men must be saved. A family in New 
Jersey was at the breakfast table when they discov- 
ered that their house was on fire. The wife cried, 
' ' Oh, there is the old bureau with so many heirlooms, 
we must get it out if we lose everything else." The 
father and son rushed for it, the father getting in 
front and the son behind. They pulled and pushed 
as it became wedged in the front door until they could 
get it neither out nor in. The son was blocked in 



THE WINNING CHURCH 19T 

the bouse with no chance to escape. The father ran 
to a window, at the side of the house, over which were 
several iron bars. Seeing his son in the furnace 
prison, he seized those bars and jerked them off, bring- 
ing forth his son to safety. 

A minister decided he would use this story at the 
close of his sermon to clinch his message. He gave a 
graphic description of the exciting scene, and told how 
the father made a battering ram of himself until his 
arteries stood out like whipcords, as he moved the 
bars from their fastenings with the strength of a 
Hercules. At the close of the illustration the audi- 
ence was inclined- to smile and there was an unsuc- 
cessful attempt on the part of many to look wise. 
On the way home from the service the minister said, 
"Wife, why was it that story did not take?" She 
complimented him on the selection of the illustration 
and upon the vivid way in which he told the story, 
and then said, "But you made one fatal mistake; you 
forgot to tell the audience that the house was on fire. ' ' 
There are too many ministers who neglect to tell the 
people of the fires of hell. 

Too often the church is talking about science, and 
learning, and wireless telegraphy, and the uses of 
radium and liquefied air — and it amounts to just about 
so much hot air. These things will never hasten the 
Millennium. Remember Jesus gave the sinning world 
in His message not science except the science of sal- 
vation, not philosophy except the philosophy of faith, 
not poetry except the poetry of pardon. The church 



198 GREAT THINGS OF THE BIBLE 

to-day is painfully respectable, she dresses in silk and 
broadcloth and lifts both hands in horror if anything 
is not done precisely in the line of ecclesiastical eti- 
quette. She talks about quietness and the absence of 
sensationalism, forgetting that she was the child of 
a storm, born amid thunderings and tongues of fire. 
May the dull ear of the church hear and understand 
that, ' ' Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, 
saith the Lord," is she to do the work of her Risen 
Founder. 

II. Steadfast est Fellowship. 

"They continued steadfastly in fellowship." Pente- 
cost came to a church with a small membership. The 
Bible record is, "The number of names together were 
about an hundred and twenty." In that day every 
Christian was a church member and every church 
member was a Christian. I meet some professed Chris- 
tians who boast of being members of no church. They 
ask, ' ' Cannot one go quietly to Heaven and be a Nico- 
demus or a Joseph of Aramithea?" I presume you 
might be a Christian without being a church member ; 
I know you can be a church member without being 
a Christian just as one can be an American citizen 
without having a home. You perhaps have recently 
had one of these citizens at your back door. But 
neither this hobo-citizenship nor tramp religion has 
ever appealed to me. You have no business in the 
church if you are not a Christian and no business out 
of the church if you are a Christian. 






THE WINNING CHURCH 199 

There are three types of railroad engines which 
illustrate three classes of men. There is the dead 
engine, the leaking flues have smothered the fire until 
there is neither steam nor life. They couple it in the 
middle of a train and draw it to the nearest repair 
shop. This engine is a dead load, neither pulling nor 
carrying a pound, and fittingly illustrates the lifeless 
church member. Some churches are so burdened with 
these dead weights that they can carry very little of 
the Water of Life to the thirsty thousands. I want this 
campaign to be to them what the repair shop is to 
the dead engine, that they may come forth pulsating 
with power. There is the wild engine which, by some 
unknown cause, has an open throttle, and without 
engineer plunges down the main line, making its own 
schedule, menacing the traveling public, until its pow- 
er is spent. This engine illustrates the non-church, 
free-lance, religious fanatic. The third engine is a 
thing of power drawing its full tonnage at the will 
of the engineer who moves in accord with the dis- 
patcher's schedule. This engine is a type of the 
consecrated Christian, hitched up to the big problems 
of the world's redemption, moving in harmony with 
the schedule of the church of which he is a part. 

A few years ago there were nine hundred fifty-seven 
derelicts adrift on the sea. A derelict is a vessel com- 
manded by no captain, controlled by no crew, sailing 
for no port, carrying no cargo; a menace to all navi- 
gation on the highway of the seas. The United States 
Congress authorized the construction of a vessel whose 



200 GREAT THINGS OF THE BIBLE 

•rew was commissioned to destroy all derelicts. If a 
man had attempted to pnt down the Civil War inde- 
pendent of the United States Army, by going out as 
a bushwhacker, he would have been whacking yet, and 
never would have been on the pension pay roll. If 
this world is ever won to the Lord it will be accom- 
plished through the organized church. 

A church member who is not a Christian is worth 
absolutely nothing to the cause of Christ, and a Chris- 
tian who will not become a member of some church is 
worth very little more. One of the first things to be 
accomplished in this meeting is to make the religious 
tramps feel their littleness. If I were to come to this 
city and organize into a church those who have moved 
here within the past twenty years and are still carry- 
ing their church letters, I would have a larger mem- 
bership than any pastor in the city, but it would be 
composed of a stale crowd. I have heard of butter 
and eggs after being kept in cold storage for eight 
years, palmed off on an innocent public as fresh prod- 
uce. Here is something that surpasses that: I was 
asked to preach the funeral sermon of a lady several 
years ago, who had been the wife of an editor of a 
church paper, the official organ of a leading denomin- 
ation. She was a stranger to me and when I asked 
for some evidence of her Christian life there was 
handed me a piece of paper musty with age. I opened 
its torn folds with care and found it to be a church 
letter, written before Fort Sumter was fired upon. 
Think of it, her religion tied up in a napkin for forty- 



THE WINNING CHURCH 201 

five years! There are some pigeon-hole, cold-storage, 
trunk religionists in this city within ten months of 
the judgment who will leave the minister nothing 
more tangible over which to wax eloquent in preach- 
ing their funeral sermon than a musty old church 
letter. I pray that this campaign may help you get 
your religion out of your trunk and get it into your 
heart, then you will join the church and be worth 
something to the cause of Christ. You will never whip 
the devil with your church letter, tramp religion. 

III. Steadfast in Breaking Bread. 

"They continued steadfastly in the breaking of 
bread." This doubtless refers to the Lord's Supper 
which kept before their minds the Cross of Calvary 
and was the cement which bound their hearts together 
in Christian unity. "They were all with one accord 
in one place." For soul- winning in the twentieth 
century we need "one accord" more than we need 
imposing church houses; we need "one accord" more 
than we need pipe organs; we need "one accord" more 
than we need opera singers in the choir ; we need ' * one 
accord" more than we need rich men on the member- 
ship roll; we need "one accord" more than we need 
culture in the pew; we need "one accord" more than 
we need scientific hair-splitting in the pulpit. A 
father and his son were witnessing a tug-of-war be- 
tween two groups of college students. A large rope 
with a ribbon tied about the center of it was placed 
across a canal, and an equal number of boys on each 



202 GREAT THINGS OF THE BIBLE 

side were trying to pull their opponents into the water. 
"What are they trying to do, Papa?" asked the lad. 
The father replied, "They are trying to pull the rib- 
bon on the rope across the canal." The little fellow 
intelligently added, "Why don't they all pull from 
one side, Papa? It would be easy then." The win- 
ning church is that one in which all members pull 
from one side. How can there be a revival when 
there are divisions in the church? The sacred dove 
takes its flight when contention and discord enter. 

What could General Pershing do in the present 
gigantic struggle if a colonel refused to put his regi- 
ment in the front line trenches and a captain insisted 
that his battalion must have a furlough just when an 
offensive is being launched, and a lieutenant encour- 
aged mutiny among his company because they were 
not assigned a sector to their liking? The gratifying 
achievement of the American Army in putting the 
Huns to rout, was only possible because from major 
general to private there has been absolute allegiance 
and implicit obedience to General Pershing's com- 
mand. How can you expect your pastor to win in 
the fight against sin when he cannot command one 
soldier in ten, or one dollar in a thousand? When he 
preaches against modern sins and hits home, one-fifth 
of the army become indignant and insubordinate. If 
every enlisted man and woman who has the society 
itch and other worldly ailments, had to go into a 
detention camp or hospital, some pastors would not 
have enough able-bodied soldiers for picket duty. That 



THE WINNING CHURCH 203 

man who professes to be a follower of Jesus and objects 
to a campaign against sin like this is an alien enemy 
to the cause of Christ and should be regarded as a 
subtle foe. You would be exceedingly sorry for a 
frail widow who had five pairs of twins, all imbeciles 
yet in the nursery. There are pastors as much to be 
pitied, who have sixteen or twenty babies ranging from 
seventeen to seventy years of age, still in the cradle 
and they outcry a weaning child if they are not given 
soothing syrup or some form of an appeaser. The 
entire church is so much occupied caring for these 
spoiled babies in some cases, that there is little time 
left to win new recruits for the Master. 

When I see the discord which exists in some churches 
I am reminded of an experience of my boyhood. T 
went to visit an uncle who lived in a small town. He 
had a general store and his family occupied rooms 
above. At my request he set going the dozen or more 
clocks on the shelves and when night came a bed was 
fixed for me in the rear end of the store. You can 
imagine what a night I had. No two of those clocks 
had the same time. Every few minutes one of them 
would strike; now a coarse bell slowly sounded out 
the hour of eight, then a little fine bell quickly affirmed 
that it was midnight, and presently a cuckoo called 
off the hour of three. For the life of me, with all of 
those clocks, I could not tell when morning would come, 
I did not know which one of them to believe. I could 
hear the old regulator on the wall counting out the 
seconds, but the room was dark and I could not see 



204 GREAT THINGS 'OF THE BIBLE 

the time it indicated. I was glad when morning finally 
came. There is a great deal of ding-dinging and dong- 
donging and cuckooing over non-essentials which will 
have to be adjusted to the old Regulator, the Word of 
God, before we become efficient soul winners. 

It frequently occurs when a campaign is launched 
for the saving of souls that there are those, having 
never learned to tithe their income, who lift a protest 
against the meeting because of what it will cost. This 
early church knew how to give. Either their gener- 
osity made Pentecost possible or Pentecost produced 
their generosity ; I am not certain which was the cause 
and which the effect. I have observed that the spirit- 
ual church is usually a liberal church and when a 
church becomes generous a baptism of grace follows. 
We are sadly in need of a revival of generosity. 
Some churches resort to tricks that would shame 
the devil to get a little money to pay running expenses. 
The more oyster soup it takes to keep a church run- 
ning the faster it is going to the devil. The Lord 
will never bless a synagogue of misers. I am not now 
speaking against church suppers if they are not com- 
mercialized ; the fact is some churches have something 
yet to learn at this point. There are some churches 
which have doctrine and prayer and leave fellowship 
and eating for the world to monopolize. If you have 
fellowship and eating only, you are drifting from God, 
and if you have doctrine and prayer only, you are let- 
ting the other fellow drift from God. The winning 
ehurch combines the four. 



THE WINNING CHURCH 205 

IV. Steadfast in Prayer. 

"They continued steadfastly in prayer.'' Mark 
that! The church on its knees will bring Pentecost, 
and Pentecost will keep the church on its knees. If 
you would see a genuine revival in this city there must 
be effectual, fervent prayer. This is a time when we 
must fast and pray rather than feast and play. A 
man wrote out a little prayer and hung it on the wall 
of his room and each night he would point toward 
that prayer and say, "Well, God, those are my senti- 
ments, ' ' and jump into bed. That is no more praying 
than slipping your calling card under the door is com- 
muning with a friend. The church needs to go down 
upon her knees. We have in the membership of the 
church more who attend the theater than go to prayer 
meeting, more who play cards than have family wor- 
ship, more who desecrate the Lord's Day than will 
pray in public, more who pay less than one dollar a 
year to the church than those who tithe their income, 
more who live on the "no harm level" than earnestly 
seek to do the will of God. What wonder there has 
been no great revival for years. Prayer is the right 
arm of evangelism and personal work is the left, and 
a revival never comes to a one-armed church. 

The winning church is one whose members realize 
their individual responsibility to the sinner and labor 
for his conversion. Peter was not the only human 
agent that the Lord used at Pentecost; there were 
one hundred and nineteen others. They were men and 



206 GREAT THINGS OF THE BIBLE 

women of great faith, full of the Holy Ghost and with 
a passion for lost souls. They fasted and prayed and 
worked with the individual until three thousand were 
saved. The church must pray and do personal work 
or shut up shop. One Bible sermon with one hundred 
nineteen earnest personal workers led three thousand 
to Jesus. Now it takes about three hundred sermons 
to convert one sinner. It is not organization we need 
so much as individual effort. Organization is good, 
but some churches have so much organization you can 
stand a mile away and hear the grinding of the ma- 
chinery. With all of their machinery there are people 
who have lived for twenty years under their shadow 
without once being asked to become Christians. Let 
us make bare our arms for the saving of souls. Sleepy 
saints will never overtake wide-awake sinners. 

A minister who had been for sixteen years the pastor 
of a wealthy church in Detroit called the officers of 
his church to his home and expressed his dissatisfac- 
tion at what their great church was doing in the way 
of saving the lost. At the close of his heart-searching 
plea, they knelt with him and prayed that at all costs 
their church might be used to give the bread of life to 
the unsaved multitudes of the city. While that prayer 
was being breathed out to God, their magnificent 
church building was in flames and the next morning 
was a total ruin. An opera house was rented and 
opened for evangelistic services and in the next sixteen 
months more souls were saved than had been in all 
the previous sixteen years ■ effort of that church. This 



THE WINNING CHURCH 207 

proved to be an answer to their prayer. God is cer- 
tainly not displeased with our magnificent church 
buildings, but He must sometimes adopt strenuous 
measures to arouse a prayerless church. 

Another pastor, having asked the officers of his 
church to remain at the close of a Sunday evening 
service said, "Brethren, I must make known to you 
what is upon my heart. We have gone one whole 
year without a single conversion and I feel that my 
usefulness has come to an end and that I ought to 
resign." They protested against his contemplated 
action, assuring him they were well pleased with 
his work. "But," said he, "we are saving no souls." 
Turning to one of the men he asked, ' ' Htow long have 
you been a Christian?" "Twenty-eight years," was 
the reply. "How long have you been an official of 
this church ? " " Seventeen years, pastor. " "Do you 
believe that by your personal efforts a soul was ever 
saved?" "I do not know of one," was his reply. 
After talking with each of the men and receiving 
similar replies he said, "Now, brethren, unless we 
can bring at least one soul to Jesus within the next 
two weeks, I shall resign, and I think you men should 
all do likewise. We ought not to occupy the high 
offices we do unless we are soul winners." At the 
suggestion of one of the men they knelt in prayer 
together before separating. 

The following morning one of the men went into his 
large department store and after calling the head clerk 
into his office said, "George, you have been with me 



208 GREAT THINGS OF THE BIBLE 

fourteen years and are the best man I ever had. I 
want to confess that I have not done my duty by you. 
I have known that you were not a Christian, but I have 
never recommended my Savior to you. I have been 
alike unfaithful to Him and uninterested in you. If 
I may have your forgiveness I want in your presence 
to seek His." After a further conversation the two 
men knelt together in prayer. They arose from that 
prayer, one having become a Christian and the other 
a soul winner. As they brushed the tears from their 
eyes the proprietor said, "Now, George, I want you 
to help me lead the other men of the store to Jesus." 
They went to work and before night eleven men in 
that one store were saved. The next Sunday morning 
thirty-one men came into the church with new hope 
and presented themselves for church membership. 
That is the kind of a revival I want to see in this city, 
and it would be on in twenty-four hours if every 
Christian would get busy for God. John Knox cried, 
"Give me Scotland or I die," and the Lord gave 
him Scotland and threw in England for good measure. 
If you cannot sweat blood as did the Master, you can 
shed tears over sinners. May the Lord bring the 
church to her knees for unsaved souls. A tear-stained 
face is the one argument the devil cannot meet. If 
every Christian will go out as a firebrand for God 
scores will be converted every day of this campaign. 






XIV 



SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY 

' ' When thou buildest a new house, then thou shalt make a 
battlement for thy roof, that thou bring not blood upon thine 
house, if any man fall from thence. ' ' — Deut. 22 : 8. 



God is interested not only in man's spiritual well- 
being but also in his temporal good. The underlying 
principle of all equitable law is God-given, and may 
be found in the writings of Moses and the prophets. 
The Ten Commandments contain the basic elements 
of man 's duties and in the book of Deuteronomy there 
is an amplification of the Decalogue. Many of these 
laws have to do with our daily conduct and are de- 
signed for our safety and that of the general public. 
We have heard much of "Safety First" the past dec- 
ade, but that was God's slogan forty centuries ago. 
The stipulation in the text may be called a building 
law, differing little from modern enactments requiring 
brick walls, marked exits, fire-escapes and other pre- 
cautions against fire and loss of life. It was the 
custom in those days to erect houses with flat roofs, 
much after the fashion of our business blocks. In 
that warm climate the roof was an important room, 
where the family gathered after sunset. Hence the 
danger of falling therefrom unless protected by a 
battlement or railing. To prevent the loss of life and 
assure domestic safety, the law was given that when 

209 



210 GREAT THINGS OF THE BIBLE 

such a house was erected, the builder should make a 
battlement to serve as a safeguard. I wish to make 
three applications of the principles of that law as it 

affects society at present. 

I. Battlements About the Church. 

First, let us read the text, "When thou buildest 
a new church, then thou shalt make a battlement about 
that institution, that it may not be charged to the 
carelessness of the church, if any fall from thence.'^ 
Such an interpretation is in keeping with the purpose 
of the command, for in the days of Moses the house 
top was the sanctuary. One purpose then in requiring 
battlements about the roof was to give protection while 
at worship. In my early ministry, as a general mis- 
sionary, I was instrumental in organizing not a few 
churches and have been called upon to officiate at 
church dedications in six states. A building so dedi- 
cated is indeed a sacred place and should be entered 
with becoming reverence. It should ever remain a 
"house of prayer," and never be converted into a 
' ' market place. ' ' How shall we make the battlements 
about the church sufficient to hold the young and lead 
the unsaved to Christ? 

The mid-week prayer service is a most effective 
means of placing safeguards about the church. No 
substitute can measure up to the old-fashioned prayer- 
meeting, where the children of Gk>d supplicate the 
throne of grace in effectual, fervent prayer. If the 
prayer-meeting is the spiritual thermometer of the 



SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY 211 

church there are some churches cold enough to give \/ 

an Es kimo the grippe . The prayerless church has lost 
her battlements and can neither save nor hold the 
young people of her families. A faithful presentation 
of the Gospel has been a fruitful source of winning 
sinners and edifying saints. Where prevailing prayer 
is offered and a high standard of pure Bible truth is 
taught the battlements are up. ' * Thus saith the Lord ' ' 
is a safeguard over which few will ever fall. There 
are a thousand enticing things in the world to-day 
to draw men from the house of worship. The most 
effective and permanent attraction to lead them to 
church is righteous living on the part of all professed 
followers of Jesus and a faithful declaration of "the 
whole counsel of God. ' ' Men are hungry for a positive 
Gospel, the Gospel of salvation from sin. 

There are many organizations in the church which 
have proven their worth, but mere machinery will not 
save and hold men. An abandoned church was sold 
to a company that converted it into an ice-house and 
the local paper commenting upon the matter said but 
few changes were necessary as the building was well 
adapted to its new use. It takes something more than 
organization to convert a refrigerator into an incu- 
bator. Factions and divisions must give place to unity 
of the spirit and warm-hearted Christian fellowship. 
There must be a feeding of the soul upon the "Bread 
from heaven.' ' Many remove the battlements from 
the church by remaining from her services. If the 
angels look into the well-nigh deserted churches in the 



212 GREAT THINGS OF THE BIBLE 

hot summer months, they perhaps see robes lying about 
marked, ''Mr. Auto jaunt's Religion — left until called 
for," or "Mrs. Lakeite's Church Duties — to be claim- 
ed in the fall." Meanwhile, Mr. Autojaunt and Mrs. 
Lakeite defiantly throw their dust on Sunday until it 
rises like a cloud about the little church in the valley 
by the wildwood, where they ought to worship and do 
not. More of the decadence of church going is due 
to the godless example of tourists than we think. 
However exemplary may be your manner of life while 
on vacation, if you do not seek out some church and 
join in its worship, you multiply the burdens of that 
humble pastor and by your influence tear away the 
battlements from about the house of God. Every 
Christian is a guardian of souls, but some of us become 
so engrossed in business and pleasure that we must 
shamefully acknowledge with one of old, "As thy 
servant was busy here and there he was gone." 
There is a striking lesson for the non-church goers 
J in Second Chronicles where we read, "Jotham did 
\J that which was right in the sight of the Lord, accord- 
ing to all that his father Uzziah did: howbeit he 
entered not into the temple of the Lord. And the 
people did yet corruptly." His father, King Uzziah, 
assuming the role of the high priest defiantly entered 
the holy of holies and for his irreverence was stricken 
with leprosy before the altar. The shock of that judg- 
ment may have led Jotham to say: "My father's life 
was ruined in the temple and I am going to keep out 
of it altogether. ' ' He harbored a grievance which had 



SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY 213 

no just foundation whatsoever, like many since have 
done, and felt perhaps that he could do his duty quite 
as well without any such ritual as the temple service 
supplied. Here then was a good man, upright in all 
his dealings, who never entered God's house to mingle 
his prayers and songs with God's people. And what 
was the result? "The people did yet corruptly.' ' 
King Jotham's example was ruinous to the morals of 
the nation. The wider issues of his spiritual apathy 
became moral degradation. He was not a bad man, 
remember that. "He did that which was right in 
the sight of the Lord." He even "built the high gate 
of the house of the Lord," but enter that holy temple 
for worship he would not. How like this man are 
many to-day ; men of upright lives, who even support 
the church with generous contributions, but refuse to 
join in her devotions. Jotham's example became con- 
tagious and the whole nation suffered through his in- 
fluence. He left the battlements down and the people 
of his kingdom fell from the roof of temple worship 
into the valley of moral corruption. 

The extensive program of the church in recent years 
has challenged the hearty support of influential men 
in a way hitherto unknown. The generous response 
to this challenge is enabling her to wage a decisive 
offensive against varied and acute competition before 
which, twenty years ago, sho would have retreated. 
We are now in the greatest transitional period of his- 
tory. The certainty of new and vast problems for 
the church, growing out of the world war, is only 



214 GREAT THINGS OF THE BIBLE 

surpassed by the uncertainty of their scope and nature. 
No small part of our first year's war program was the 
necessary readjustment of the army organization, the 
transportational system, and the methods of business. 
Need it be thought strange if the church must undergo 
a similar readjustment if she is to perform her aug- 
mented task? Let us have no misgivings as to her 
ability to cope with the grave situation, having an 
all-sufficient Gospel and an omnipotent Lord. It is 
rather for us to now resolve that the church shall 
hold first place among the contributors to democracy's 
supremacy over autocracy; resolve that she shall dou- 
ble her diligence in her ministry of mercy to the suf- 
fering and sorrowing from wounds of war; resolve 
that she shall be the most efficient of all institutions 
when the new order of things is ushered in. 

II. Battlements About the School. 

Second, let us read the text, "When thou buildest 
a new school, then thou shalt make a battlement about 
that institution, that it may not be charged to the 
carelessness of the state, if any fall from thence." 
Such an interpretation is justifiable when we remem- 
oer that at the time this law was given the house top 
was the grammar school, the college, and the univer- 
sity. The centralized graded school with modern 
.equipment and efficient instructors afford exceptional 
opportunity for the young to secure a thorough edu- 
cation. But there are causes for alarm. In many 
communities the Bible has been eliminated from the 



SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY 215 

schools and the degrading dance substituted. Nor is 
that all. Compare the present text-book with that of 
a generation ago. Then the great fundamental truths, 
such as the sovereignty of God and the authority of 
His law, were frequent lessons in the readers, but are 
seldom found in the otherwise improved text-book 

There is a truthful maxim, "What you would have 
in the nation you must put into the schools of the 
land." For what do we punish the youth of this 
country when they become of age? When was one 
ever fined, imprisoned, or put to death for mistakes in 
grammar, arithmetic, or geography? We punish not 
for poor reading, writing and spelling, but for theft, 
perjury, adultery and other moral wrongs. I question 
the right of the state to punish as wrong-doing what 
she never taught to be wrong. What right have we 
to punish immorality as a crime unless we teach in 
our schools God's standard of morality as a means of 
preventing crime? In this country which owes its 
civil liberty to Christ, must He and His Book dwell 
without the camp of our educational system ? A God- 
less, Christless, and Bibleless school is certain to result 
in national godlessness, and national godlessness is 
anarchy. It is no compliment to a state that she bars 
the Bible from her schools, but requires it in her peni- 
tentiary. God save us from the day that any state 
would have her young commit a crime before she will 
read the Bible to him. Every cell in one of the large 
penitentiaries has a Bible, but a deck of cards cannot 
be found in the institution — the inmates would gamble 



216 GREAT THINGS OF THE BIBLE 

the buttons off their clothes. Yet many homes hare 
substituted cards for the Bible. God pity the children 
of these homes. 

In lifting safeguards about the schools we must not 
only see to it that the one chosen as instructor is 
competent to teach, but we must also be assured that 
her traits of character and habits of life are a worthy 
example for her pupils. She must interpret every 
lesson, and her construction of the morals taught 
cannot be higher than her own life. She receives the 
child when his whole life is plastic and his mind as 
sensitive as a photographic plate. The greatest dan- 
ger, however, does not arise from the common schools, 
for in the main, the eighty thousand who each year 
cross the threshold for the first time as teachers pos- 
sess the more abundant life. The real danger lies in 
the higher schools of learning where spiritual safe- 
guards have become unpopular. 

More of our young men and women should receive 
a college education, but if they must be so environed 
while receiving that education as to destroy their faith 
in the Bible, which is the foundation of indispensable 
knowledge, then they are losers an hundredfold in the 
end. In our institutions of higher learning an at- 
mosphere has grown up which impugns, if it does not 
deny, the Bible, and is turning many of our colleges 
and universities into hotbeds of infidelity or refrig- 
erators of indifference. They may have the Bible in 
the curriculum but only to be torn asunder as an 
unbelievable book. Many of them even teach that 



SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY 217 

marriage is not a divine institution but a mere human 
arrangement and that domestic morality is only a 
social convention. The chairs of science and philos- 
ophy in most of our state universities and in many 
other institutions are filled by professors whose minds 
are drenched with rationalism. I lift my protest to 
the prevailing custom which permits one to flaunt his 
liberal views, but prohibits the true believer from 
teaching the fundamentals of religion. If true relig- 
ion is to be banished from our schools, in the name of 
reason, why drag it in and crucify it there? The 
school that does this inconsistent and criminal thing 
has torn away its battlements and subjects those who 
matriculate in it to the attendant evils of unbelief. 
We cannot exercise too much care in choosing the 
school in which to place our sons and daughters, and 
one of the important considerations is whether or not 
that school will safeguard their faith in God and the 
Bible. 

Here let me make an appeal in behalf of the Chris- 
tian college. These schools are supported by the free 
will contributions of a large constituency who pray 

that the Divine Teacher may so rule the school as to 

« 
best develop those within its halls. The student is 

here surrounded by a wholesome atmosphere which 

leads many into the Christian life, and develops soul 

growth. At first the schools of the church were a 

chain of unendowed academies, each with a single 

plain building in which they did their most effective 

work in a very unpretentious way. Then came the 



218 GREAT THINGS OF THE BIBLE 

day of struggling colleges, with only the nestling of 
an endowment, but they did a work beyond adequate 
estimation. The past decade the endowment of our 
Christian colleges has grown like Jonah's gourd. We 
have all shared in making this growth possible and 
rejoice at its accomplishment. It enables these colleges 
to meet state requirements and inaugurate programs 
commensurate with the spirit of the times. I have 
sometimes thought that the weakness of the early 
church schools was their strength, and am certain that 
we need to pray much lest their present strength proves 
to be their weakness. The debt which the nation owes 
to the Christian college is greater than can be esti- 
mated. There were in the Colonies before our national 
independence, seven colleges, and these were pre-emi- 
nently Christian schools. It was from the halls of 
these institutions, where the higher principles of man- 
hood were developed, that a large percentage of the 
men came who laid the foundation of our government 
and drafted the most equitable constitution among 
men. And from that day down to the present the 
Christian college stands as a lighthouse directing the 
sons of men into the safe channels of human events. 

II. Battlements About the Home. 

In the third place, let us read the text, "When 
thou buildest a new home, then thou shalt make a 
battlement, or safeguard, about that home, to secure 
domestic peace and safety/ ' We can scarcely con- 
ceive of a more important and eventful period in one 's 



SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY 219 

life than when he assumes the responsibility of stand- 
ing at the head of a new home. The Bible has much 
to say relative to the sacred vow and marriage altar. 
Man has also enacted laws governing marriage to saf e- 
gurd the interests of the public and insure tranquillity 
to the family kingdom. When we come to speak of 
the home we are considering the oldest institution 
among men. It is the only institution that comes to 
us from the garden of Eden. It alone survived the 
Deluge. The family everywhere exists to-day in some 
form, and the Glory World is to be marshaled in by 
the marriage of the Lamb. 

That there is need of frequent and judicious teach- 
ing the young the solmenity and sacredness of the 
marriage vow and the responsibilities which must be 
assumed when establishing a new home, there can be 
little question. Recent statistics reveal to us the alarm- 
ing fact that one in every eight marriages is termin- 
ated by the untimely scourge of divorce. The woe that 
exists and the sorrows that are born in unhappy 
unions and ill-established homes where divorce has not 
yet been resorted to, only the thousands who thus suf- 
fer can know. I advocate a more stringent divorce 
law and certainly it should be uniform throughout 
all states. It frequently occurs that a re.ady-made 
divorce is secured by one member of the union upon 
the slightest pretense and when the peevish plight 
passes the couple confess their folly by remarrying. 
The most effective cure for the divorce evil is the anti- 
toxin of common sense and love to be administered 



220 GREAT THINGS OF THE BIBLE 

some months before marriage. Deference must always 
be shown to that one whom of all others it should be 
the greatest delight to please. No interest must be 
allowed to eclipse the interests of the home. Thre are 
many married people constantly in society airing their 
views who ought to be at home viewing their heirs. 
The attitude of some toward their homes reminds me 
of a certain domestic animal; to them home is little 
more than a place in which to eat and sleep and grant. 
There is no time more important to safeguard do- 
mestic happiness than when the home is being estab- 
lished. Hence, when thou buildest a new home, pro- 
vide battlements. See to it that when children come 
into it, they may not meet with the awful fate de- 
scribed in the Lamentations of Jeremiah, when he said, 
"How is the gold become dim! how is the most fine 
gold changed ! the stones of the sanctuary are poured 
out in the top of every street. The precious sons of 
Zion, comparable to fine gold, how are they esteemed 
as earthen pitchers, the work of the hands of the 
potter?" The laxity in the spiritual and moral tone 
of the home accounts for the alarming decadence of 
domestic discipline. There are too many parents who 
totally neglect the religious instruction of their chil- 
dren and are as ignorant of the Bible as the father 
who, when approached by his son, twelve years of 
age, with the question, "Father, who was Shylock?" 
met the question with the parental rejoinder, ' ' Shame 
on you for such ignorance ; hunt the Bible and find out 
for yourself." 



SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY 221 

Let the home be established in prayer, and protected 
by the family altar. Read the old Bible, and it will be 
as a battlement about the home. In these modern 
times of hustle we are getting away from the devout 
custom of our fathers in the regular observance of 
family prayers. If it was expedient to safeguard the 
home in the simple life of the primitive day, is it not 
imperative in the strenuous life of the present gener- 
ation, when the home circle is constantly broken by 
the father being away on business, the son off to col- 
lege, the mother out in society, and the daughter on 
vacation % This condition has given rise to the annual 
family reunion, at which time we have our pictures 
taken so we may see, the remaining three hundred 
sixty-four days of the year, how the family looks 
when all together. This meeting should be daily, and 
the place of the meeting about the family hearth-stone, 
and the object of the meeting to worship God. For, 
excuse ourselves as we will, the fact remains, when 
we shut God out of our homes, we close our hearts 
to heaven's richest blessings. 

On the tenth of April in 1852, beneath the African 
sun, died an American. He was laid to rest in a lonely 
cemetery in Tunis, Africa. Thirty-one years later, 
as an act of a grateful public, the United States dis- 
patched a man-of-war to the African coast, American 
hands opened that grave, placed the dust of his body 
on board the battleship, and turned again for his 
native land. Their arrival in the American harbor 
was welcomed by the firing of guns in the fort, and 



222 GREAT THINGS OF THE BIBLE 

by a display of flags at half-mast. His remains were 
carried to the nation's Capital City on a special train. 
There was a suspension of all business, an adjourn- 
ment of all departments of government, and as the 
funeral procession passed down Pennsylvania Avenue, 
the president, vice-president, members of the cabinet, 
congressmen, judges of the supreme court, officers of 
the army and navy, and a mass of private citizens, 
rich and poor, stood with uncovered heads. To whom 
did they thus pay homage ? To a man who expressed 
the longing of his heart rather than the happy expe- 
rience of his life; a man whose soul longed for the 
domestic tranquillity of a pious home, such a home 
as our text makes provision for, and he expressed that 
longing in the words of that sweet song, "Home, 
Sweet Home." 

Thus we see three co-ordinate purposes of this law : 
to safeguard Christian worship, place a battlement 
about intellectual research, and protect the domestic 
circle. And here we have the three most important 
institutions among men, the church, the school, the 
home. See that the child in his worship and church 
life is piously environed, and in his education develop 
the entire man, and give him a home atmosphere per- 
meated with love and religion, and I will vouch for 
his citizenship. We are to-day very measurably the 
kind of men and women that the church life, school 
life, and home life made us. It could not well be 
otherwise. And the child in your arms to-day will 
become just such a citizen as the religious teaching 



SAFEGUARDS OF SOCIETY 223 

and church home you provide for him, the standard 
of the school in which he receives his education, and 
the moral and spiritual home in which he is reared, 
make him. May the home in which his spiritual self 
is born and nurtured in worship, the home in which 
his intellect awakens and is developed, and the home 
in which his physical form grows to full stature, all 
be surrounded by the battlements of prayer and faith 
in God. Such blessings universally given the indi- 
vidual are indeed Safeguards of Society. 



XV 

RELIGION IN THE HOME 

"These words which I command thee this day shall be im, 
thine heart, ard thou shalt teach them diligently unto tay chil- 
aren, and shalt talk oj them when thou sittest in thine house, 
and when thou walkest by tne way, and when thou aest down, 
and when thou risest up." — Deut. 6:6, 7. 

These words teach most conclusively that it is the 
imperative duty of parents to instruct their children 
in religious things. This instruction is not to be 
given by proxy. The text does not read, ' ' Thou shalt 
have them taught thy children by the Sunday School 
teacher." The Bible is in no wise opposed to such 
religious instruction, but these words are ' i Thou shalt 
teach them diligently unto thy children." Not only 
are they to be taught on Sunday morning or when 
there are religious friends in the home, but "thou 
shalt teach them diligently unto thy children." 
Neither does the text say, "Thou shalt talk of thy 
neighbor's shortcomings when thou sittest in thine 
house." This is a common subject of conversation 
in many homes. The admonition is "Thou shalt talk 
of them," the words of the Lord, "when thou sittest 
in thine house." Nor are we to talk simply of tem- 
poral things as we walk by the way, but use every 
bursting bud by day and every brilliant star by night 
in telling the story of the God of beauty, love and 
might. The text further says, ' l Thou shalt teach them 



RELIGION IN THE HOME 225 

when thou liest down." This is an indorsement of 
the prevalent custom of teaching children to offer 
evening prayers. The last thought on the mind at 
night should be a thought of God. "And thou shalt 
teach them when thou risest up." The first thought 
on the mind in the morning should be a thought of 
God. Hence, the habit of observing the morning 
watch. We used to teach the catechism, but in many- 
homes now there is not even taught a " kittychism. " 

I. Christless Homes. 

A motherless or fahterless home is a pity, but a 
prayerless, Christless home is a tragedy. A home that 
is too poor to provide a bathroom in these days of 
modern conveniences has a penury which calls for 
sympathy, but a home that is too poor to own a family 
altar in these perilous days has a poverty which robs 
Heaven. The awfulness of the crime of a prayerless 
home is only equaled by the appalling number of such 
homes. I am not now talking about Bibleless homes. 
Very few people attempt to keep house without placing 
the Bible in the list of indispensable furnishings. Most 
every home in these days has a copy of the Bible, but 
it is frequently permitted to become dust-covered. 
The fact that a Bible might be found somewhere about 
the house does not disprove that the home is Christ- 
less. There are homes in which might be found the 
Bible, a deck of cards and a case of beer, none of which 
are in view to the casual observer. Through disuse 
the Bible may be covered with catalogues from mail- 



226 GREAT THINGS OF THE BIBLE 

order houses and a flood of other things which enter 
the daily life of the occupants, while the deck of cards 
and the case of beer may be hid from view to appease 
a guilty conscience in case a righteous neighbor should 
unexpectedly call. In most cases of this kind it would 
be an easier matter to find the deck of cards and the 
case of beer, however dextrously they may be hid, than 
to discover the disused Bible. Certain it is that one 
need not break through a barrier of cobwebs in loca- 
ting these side dishes of the devil as frequently would 
be the case in finding the Book of Manna. 

There are Christless homes in which the Bible is 
very much in evidence. In my early ministry I was 
calling in such a home and was invited to examine the 
Bible. The father of this home was a cabinetmaker 
and had prepared a nicely finished case of quarter- 
sawed oak in which to keep the newly purchased Bible. 
Before producing the Bible he searched through every 
pocket of his clothing and then turning to his wife 
asked, "Ida, didn't I give you that key!" A few 
minutes passed during which time a diligent search 
was made, resulting in the lost key being found. The 
key was inserted in the little lock which securely held 
the lid of the case and protected the Bible, as the 
father explained, from being handled and soiled by 
the children of the home. This was the first and only 
time I ever found the Bible under lock and key and 
the key lost. Some of you who smile at this are so 
irreligious that I could go to your homes and lock 
up the Bible and throw the key in the well and six 



RELIGION IN THE HOME 227 

months would pass before you would miss the Book. 

A recent editorial from The Wall Street Journal 
reads, ' ' What America needs more than railway exten- 
sion, and western irrigation, and a low tariff, and a 
bigger wheat crop, and a merchant marine, and a new 
navy, is a revival of piety, the kind mother and father 
used to have— piety that counted it good business to 
stop for daily family prayer before breakfast, right in 
the middle of harvest." That is not only fine senti- 
ment and sane judgment, but it is also a timely 
exhortation coming from a rather unexpected source. 
How perilous the pathway that leads from the home 
too busy, too careless or too wicked to own a family 
altar. The family altar has altered many a family. 
Of all the criminals who fill our prisons and pollute 
the streams of social life, very few had homes in which 
God was honored and worshiped. A man who is so 
busy with his bank or business, so engrossed with his 
new car or old club that he cannot take time for 
family prayers, that man puts his children on the block 
and sells them to the devil for money and pleasure. 

On a beautiful autumn day some years ago, in com- 
pany with a brother, we drove into a barnyard in one 
of the fertile valleys of western Kansas and found a 
young man cribbing a load of newly-gathered corn. 
Our mission was to interest the people of the com- 
munity in the services we were conducting in the 
near-by cross-roads church. After a brief conversation 
with this industrious young man, who manifested little 
interest in religious things, we turned and drove away. 



228 GREAT THINGS OF THE BIBLE 

Immediately in front of the house I asked the driver 
to stop the horse and look. ' ' What do you see, ' ' said 
he, "of interest here?" I replied, "You have had no 
opportunity to explain, but I infer from the age of 
the young man with whom we have just been talking, 
and from the young orchard at the rear of the lot, 
the small barn, the new house, and other evidences 
that this is a newly-made home." "You are correct," 
said he, "but what will you have me see?" "Look," 
said I, "at this historic path on the opposite side of 
the road." 

There, through a field of growing alfalfa, a little 
path led down into an orchard forty rods away above 
the trees of which the top of a chimney appeared. 
"Is not this the path," I asked, "which leads to 
mother's house? Is not the bride in the new home a 
daughter from the old home in the orchard?" "You 
are right, again," said he. Who can estimate the 
many useful articles, needed in a new home, that had 
come from that old home, up through the orchard, 
by the way of the little path, over the fence, across 
the road, into the new home? The flourishing rose 
bush at the corner of the new house was a transplant- 
ing from the family rose bush at the corner of the 
old home. The cluster of vines about the front porch 
sent a profuse fragrance from their gorgeous blos- 
soms, just such vines as clambered about the old porch 
behind the orchard. The fruits and preserves which 
replenished the rather bare cupboard in the new home 



RELIGION IN THE HOME 229 

came by this little pathway from the old home in the 
lane. 

Happy is the young couple whose newly-made home 
sits at the end of such a path. They owe a debt of 
gratitude to the old home back of the orchard, the 
interest of which only can be paid by returned favors. 
With all the multiplied favors which may come from 
the old home into the new, the new home has not yet 
been established that will not sooner or later meet a 
crisis through which God alone is able to lead. At such 
a time a Christless, prayerless home is a barren desert 
to the weary pilgrims, but the family altar in the 
Christian home is a living fountain at which they 
drink and are refreshed. Build your new home, young 
people, not only at the end of a path which leads back 
to mother's house, but build it also at the foot of a 
ladder like unto the one that appeared to Jacob, the 
topmost rungs of which reach the throne of Heaven, 
the ladder of a family altar, upon which prayers as- 
cend and the angels descend with Heaven's blessing. 

II. Christian Homes. 

A home where the dove of peace perches and the 
angel of love abides is a harbor in which storm-driven 
mariners on the domestic sea take mooring and find 
such happiness as a Christless world may give, but 
must feed their souls upon husks of temporal things 
instead of "The Finest of the Wheat." A home in 
which the spirit of true devotion hangs the lamp of 
hope in its lighthouse of faith is a haven in which 



280 GREAT THINGS OF THE BIBLE 

devout voyagers take refuge from the raging storm 
and banquet upon meat of which the world knows not, 
as they rest beneath the banner of love and are en- 
chanted by celestial music played by unseen hands 
upon harps of gold. Without further attempt at de- 
fining a Christian home we will now look upon two 
of these homes in the hope of catching their spirit. 
We will see the first of these homes in the day of its 
making, then we will turn the dial of time and hear 
the benediction of half a century pronounced upon it ; 
in the other we will spend a single day when the fruits 
of a quarter of a century are in full bloom. 

In a Sunday morning sermon some years ago I 
emphasized the importance of setting up the family 
altar in a new home. At the close of the service a 
Christian father took my hand and said that he had 
been much wrought upon by the message. He said it 
carried him back more than fifty years to the time 
when he and his wife were married, and with tears 
in his eyes, told how they started the family altar. 
On the evening following their marriage, he and his 
bride went to their new home, a little log house deep 
in the woods. As the hour grew late, he began to wish 
for his father ; realizing as never before what it means 
to stand at the head of a home, and be responsible 
for the standards of that home. The battle being 
fought was, ' ' Shall I suggest that we have a Scripture 
lesson and prayer?" He had been reared in a Chris- 
tian home where family prayer was regularly offered. 
His mother had presented him with a New Testament 



RELIGION IN THE HOME 281 

and Psalms. His wife was a Christian, this he knew, 
but her attitude toward family worship must now be 
settled. He then told his wife of the custom of the 
home from which he had come, and asked if their new 
home was to be a house of prayer. The reply from 
the bride was, "It will not seem like home to me if 
we do not have family worship." 

He grasped my hand more firmly as he explained 
how they sat side by side on the puncheon bench, and 
how the wife held the burning candle near his shoulder 
as he made the selection and read. Then how, laying 
the Bible at one end of the bench and placing the 
candle at the other, they knelt side by side and prayed 
that God might bless their union, enrich their lives, 
and help them to serve Him accpetably. ' ' Oh, ' ' said 
he, "I am completely broken up this morning, for I 
have been thinking those days all over again, and 
the thought occurred to me, what might have come to 
me and my family if the devil had gotten the victory 
that first night. God has been so good to us," he 
continued, "our family life has been continual sun- 
shine and happiness. I see many changes as I look 
back over the past; the old candle gave way to the 
oil lamp, and new the oil lamp has been discarded 
and our home is equipped with electric lights; but," 
said he with decided emphasis, ' ' the great change that 
has taken place between the old tallow candle and our 
present electric light does not equal in illumination 
the increased brilliancy of the light that is in my 
heart. Truly, the Bible has been to me, 'A lamp unto 



232 GREAT THINGS OF THE BIBLE 

my feet and a light unto my path.' And with me it 
is a glorious fact that 'The path of the just is as the 
shining light, that shineth more and more unto the 
perfect day.' " 

Such a home as this is the joy of all its occupants, 
the standard of the community, and a bulwark of the 
nation. It receives the blessing of Gtod, and imparts 
a blessing to man. From homes like this have come 
the men and women who have made the history of 
America worth writing, and those who are to write our 
future history can have no greater heritage than the 
holy environment of a consecrated home where char- 
acter is fostered and manhood is developed. 

The other home I would have you see is in central 
Iowa. A few years ago I was met at a county seat 
town on a July afternoon and conveyed to this home 
in the family carriage. As we drove through the 
beautiful country, the father told me that the follow- 
ing day was to be a holiday in their home. Not under- 
standing how a farmer could have a holiday in mid- 
summer, I asked him to explain the occasion. He 
replied, ' ' My boys have worked hard all summer, har- 
vesting is done, threshing has scarcely begun, and the 
corn needs no further cultivation. My oldest son will 
be twenty-one years of age to-morrow and we are 
going to take the day off. I have not made this known 
to the boys, yet, I thought they would appreciate the 
surprise. 

We reached the home, a beautiful place, where we 
spent a pleasant evening and had refreshing sleep. 



RELIGION IN THE HOME 233 

After the morning meal and family worship, the father 
left the house, crossed the road to the barn, hitched 
a beautiful horse to the buggy and tied it at the front 
gate. The boys and I were in the parlor, wondering 
where he purposed driving. Presently the father 
stood in the front door and from the eldest son came 
this question, "Where are you going, father?" This 
question flooded the father's already full heart. He 
crossed the floor and taking the son's hand with deep 
emotion said, "My boy, father is not going anywhere; 
you are to-day twenty-one years of age; I have gone 
to the barn and hitched the best horse to the new 
buggy; they stand at the gate at your disposal. The 
question is, 'where are you going?' " 

Nothing had been said about a holiday, but I saw 
that it was now on in full blast. The son arose, unable 
to reply, untied the horse and drove away. In about 
an hour he returned and placed the horse in the barn. 
As he came up the walk he appeared the image of his 
father of an hour before. He paused a moment in 
the open door and then walked over to his mother, 
who had entered the parlor during his absence. Kneel- 
ing at her side, he buried his face in her lap and 
sobbed, "Mother, home never looked better to me in 
all my life than it did when I drove up the lane a 
bit ago. I cannot express my appreciation of the 
Christian home you and father have made for me. I 
have now no thought or plan of leaving such a good 
home." Whatever else passed between them, the an- 
gels alone know, for I stepped in an adjoining room, 



234 GREAT THINGS OF THE BIBLE 

believing this to be a scene only to be witnessed by 
heavenly guests. Of all the holidays, anniversaries 
or family reunions it has been my privilege to attend, 
this was by far the most impressive. 

Fortunate indeed it was that this young man came 
to appreciate a Christian home before he went out 
from it for life. I know the dearest memories with 
some of you are the scenes and sweet experiences of 
th old home. How we wish they might be ours again. 
I went back some years ago to the old farm where I 
was born and there, beneath the old trees where we 
used to play and swing, I stood and thought. The 
man became a child again and the long, weary years 
became as though they had not been. I heard the 
lowing herds and the tinkling bells as the tapestry of 
the evening fell. Once more I seemed to kneel with 
mother beside the little bed and pray: 

' ' Now I lay me down to sleep, 
I pray thee, Lord, my soul to keep. 
If I should die before I yake, 
I pray thee, Lord, my soul to take, 
And I ask this for Jesus' sake, Amen." 

I cried out then as I feel like crying now: 

"Backward, turn backward, time in thy flight, 
Make me a child again just for to-night. 
Mother, come back from that echoless shore, 
Take me again to your heart as of yore. 
In the old cradle I'm longing to creep, 
Rock me to sleep, mother, rock me to sleep." 



RELIGION IN THE HOME 235 

III. Converted Homes. 

The transforming of a monarchy into a republic 
makes a chapter of interesting history and insures 
the blessings of democracy to every citizen. The con- 
version of a Christless home into a home of prayer 
sets the joy bells of Heaven ringing and gives to each 
member of the family that "peace which passeth 
understanding" and makes them heirs "to an inherit- 
ance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not 
away, reserved in Heaven." The angels never look 
earthward and behold a more beautiful picture than 
to see in a former Christless home the now pious father 
and devout mother with rosy cheeked boys and girls 
about them as they gather at the close of day around 
the family altar, where the father reads aloud a 
chapter from the Living* Word and they all kneel in 
prayer and devotion to God. Let us see one of these 
homes in its transformation. 

I was conducting a meeting in western Oklahoma 
some years ago and a middle aged man became much 
interested. On a Sunday morning I emphasized the 
importance of family worship. He became convicted 
under this sermon and on Tuesday night of the same 
week he and his wife were converted. The next day he 
related the following to me: 

"Soon after wife and I were married, the Govern- 
ment opened this strip for settlement, and the race 
was made to stake out homesteads. I entered the race 
and secured this claim. In a few weeks I had pre- 



236 GREAT THINGS OF THE BIBLE 

pared a little dug-out, and wife and I were happily 
located in our new home. We have since built a 
modest two-roomed house, and into our home have 
come three sweet little girls. A few months ago diph- 
theria spread through this section and for some time 
we did not know whehter our children would be spared 
to us or not. As they were in the balance of life 
and death we tenderly ministered to them, anxiously 
awaiting the verdict. Victory came and they were 
all spared. When I heard you preach on 'Religion 
in the Home,' I became convicted, for I was guilty of 
a most shameful neglect. After returning home last 
night from church, wife and I decided to start a fam- 
ily altar. She found the old Bible and the Lord 
seemed to direct me in selecting an appropriate Scrip- 
ture. I read a few verses and came to a word which 
I could not pronounce. I spelled it out and my oldest 
daughter gave the pronunciation. Just then a sense 
of shame struck me with such force I can scarcely 
describe it! To think that the first time I ever read 
the Bible before my family I had to turn to one of 
my own children for the pronunciation of difficult 
words! Had she slapped me in the face, I would 
not have felt more keenly rebuked. After the reading 
we had prayer and such a blessing came into our hearts 
as we had never before experienced. When I came 
in at noon to-day, I heard singing up at the house 
such as I had not heard since the early days of our 
married life. The sweet voice of my wife was giving 
expression to the joy of her heart. The children were 



RELIGION IN THE HOME 237 

at play under the shade of a tree, and they were 
having church. I tell you, I am the happiest man 
to-day in all this country." 

Here was a home which had been without Christ 
all these years, but when it became a converted home 
great joy came to the entire household, and in the 
years since then this family has enjoyed the sweet 
fellowship of the Holy Spirit and has daily petitioned 
the blessings of Heaven. I tell you, friends, Long- 
fellow's " Hanging of the Crane," and Bobby Burns 's 
" Cotter's Saturday Night," are as sweet in practice 
as they are in poetry. Can it be that in any of the 
homes presided over by Christian parents the voice 
of prayer is never heard? What, my brother! no 
supplication at night for divine protection, no thanks- 
giving in the morning for care, and no prayer for 
direction ? How can you hope to escape the judgment 
of God pronounced in the tenth chapter of Jeremiah 
in these words: "Pour out thy fury upon the fam- 
ilies that call not on thy name." Daniel preferred a 
night with the lions to a prayerless bed-chamber. 

A little girl whose mother was dead met the dis- 
pleasure of her father by going frequently to the home 
of a neighbor a short distance down the country lane. 
He reproved her severely, but still she would go. One 
day he told her that if she went again he would 
punish her without mercy. A few days later she 
was missed and presently he saw her coming from 
the neighbor's house. He would have no explanation 
until he had administered the punishment. She then 



238 GREAT THINGS OF THE BIBLE 

said, "Papa, I don't want to be a bad girl, but I go 
down there 'cause they read about Jesus, and you 
know that mamma has gone to live with Jesus, and 
I jist get so lonesome to hear about Jesus since mamma 
ain't here to talk to me about Him; papa, if you'd 
talk to me about Jesus and read about Jesus and pray 
to Jesus, then I wouldn't go down there no more." 
Oh, parents! when you have departed, to be with 
your children no more, when the sod is green over 
your grave and the moss is covering the inscription on 
your tombstone, will your children be able to remem- 
ber father and mother at family prayer? Will they 
find on the margins of the old family Bible finger 
prints at consoling promises and tears of joy wept 
by eyes that have closed to the scenes of earth and 
opened to the splendors of the glory world? I fear 
that if some of your children ever reach Heaven it 
will be because someone else read to them about Jesus 
and talked to them about Jesus and prayed to Jesus 
with them. If your home is a Christless home in 
which the voice of prayer is not heard, will you not 
give me your hand and ask Jesus to help you make 
it in reality a Christian home? 



Printed in The United Statea of America 



"Strangers to God' 



By the Same Author 



THIS volume of striking evangelistic messages has reached the 
fourth edition. It is rich in illustration, graphic in des- 
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STRANGERS TO GOD 

FACE TO FACE WITH GOD 

GOD OR BAAL! WHICH? 

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